Voyager Meets Clan Silver Dragon
by Crudack Darkbane
Summary: This X-over picks up where my DS-9 left off. While they can be read independently of each other, it will make more sense if you read the first one first. Anyway, the "Clans" are my own original idea and are copyrighted. I am trying to get my "Clans" novels published, and plese R&R!


**Voyager Meets Clan Silver Dragon**

**Disaster in the Delta Quadrant**

**by Bruce Pickelheimer**

**Disclaimer**

All characters used in this story are fictional. Star Trek and the associated concepts are the sole property of those who hold the various copyrights on them. Some of the characters in this story are, however, not included in any of the various Trek stories written by their creators, and are the creation of the author. Any discrepancy between the original Trek universe, its fleet, and the various ships and weapons used by the Federation and those used in the various stories by the original creators are and were unintentional. StarFleet is dedicated to peaceful coexistence, exploration, and diplomacy, and that is reflected in the design and construction of their ships.

The Clans, the various characters in the Clans in this story, and all of the associated species and concepts are the sole property of the author, and are original copyrighted material. This story may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, or sold in any form, and the original characters and concepts in it may not be used for any purpose without the written consent of the author. Violators will be in violation of the copyright protection laws, and will be prosecuted, and may be subject to both criminal and civil liability accordingly.

**Personal Disclaimer**

**from the author**

I am very sorry about the size of the crossovers and other things that I write, since they seem to be such short stories and leave so much material uncovered that should be explored to make the story seem more rounded and complete. Unfortunately, since they are mainly written as a way to relax and spend some leisure time for myself, they end up being short stories, rather than actual long stories or books. I actually write these stories when I need to take a break from writing the books which are my own original creations. Believe me, they are much longer, more detailed, and much more graphic, especially when it comes to the warfare and violence.

Of course, when you write about things that someone else has created and set up, you are constrained by the rules and characters that are there so that you can't just do anything that you want with them. That does limit the amount of freedom that you can take with the story line, the plot, and the character development. At least, somewhat.

And, of course, I do try to limit some of the more graphic sexual and violent content in the crossovers, since they aren't actually part of my own books or universe. The audience is much different, and has different expectations than they would if they were reading totally original works by a new author in order to determine if they like his writing style, his characters, his stories, and the way that he develops things and allows them to imagine how the things that are being described look, feel, smell, taste, or sound.

**CLANS / VOYAGER XOVER**

**OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER**

This story was written for my own entertainment. The creators of the Star Trek universe don't want anyone correcting their science errors in anything that is officially recognized or sanctioned by them, including their book contests to look for new books or authors to write for their universe, because of the problems that would create for their entire universe and story line, so anyone who reads this should keep that fact firmly fixed in their mind. What you read here will NEVER be part of the Star Trek universe in any series, movie, or book. Their universe is fictional, and they created a set of physics and science rules for their universe that made things work for them. That is the basis for science fiction. Unfortunately, according to the laws of physics, a lot of their "science" is nothing more than fiction.

Star Trek, its characters, its technology (as horribly flawed and scientifically unsound as it is), and the universe in which it exists are all the property of the individuals or corporate entities who hold the rights, licenses, trademarks, and copyrights associated with them. This work is not intended for sale or distribution in any electronic or written format.

The Clans, their technology, and their universe are the intellectual property of the author, and are copyrighted. Their use without specific written or verified electronic permission from the author are strictly prohibited.

**NOTE TO TREKKIES**

Any errors in this work are my fault. I know the "science" of the Trek universe, but I only watch Trek for pure entertainment. It is science fiction, with very heavy emphasis on the fiction, and much more attention to political correctness and promoting the rose colored liberal agenda than to things that are actually based in science, either real or theoretical. I don't care about being totally accurate on the nuts and bolts of the Dominion war, and certainly not enough to dig through volumes of books, seasons of DS9 episodes, and ungodly numbers of poorly organized web pages to get the few bits of actual hard data that are available, relevant to this story, and which don't conflict with each other. So if the number, size, and classes of the various Federation, Romulan, Klingon, Dominion, Cardassian, and Breen ships don't match what you think they should be, blame the fact that nobody has an official site that has the officially decreed numbers, classes, or capabilities. I just gave the Federation side about as many ships as I thought they had, outnumbered them greatly with the closest approximation that I could come up with for enemy forces, and made sure that there were enough enemy forces to totally overwhelm them.

As for the story, I was fairly generous with Trek tech, erring greatly in their favor over what their actual physics indicates that they are capable of. One thing that I was not so forgiving of was the Trek fallacy of detecting ships that are traveling at faster than light speeds when they are coming toward you. If you don't have some type of sensor array that can transmit data back to you through subspace or some other dimension so that the data can reach the ship or station before the object that it was detecting can, then you definitely aren't going to see it coming before it gets there. Do the math, and learn about reality, people. Detection requires something outside of the ship itself if you intend to detect something that is traveling at many times the speed of light BEFORE it reaches you.

If you don't understand real physics, both applied and theoretical, you won't understand and probably won't like Clan tech. Believe me, if you actually think that the tech in Star Wars or Star Trek works and makes sense, you probably won't like the physics here. If you want to understand it, the solution is simple. Learn the basics for both applied and theoretical physics, and learn to think outside of the box. I tend to go into enough detail when I am creating various parts of Clan tech that I don't overlook anything that can't be avoided, and those who have checked the tech who are into physics (as in qualified by education, advanced degrees, and employment) who know the answers to their questions on how particular things in Clan tech could work seem to think that the answers do make sense, and that the physics works. Clan tech is solidly based in both real and applied theoretical physics, with as few errors as I could manage. While I was trained in science, I'm much better in my own area of specialization than I am at physics. If you don't like the physics, stick to "science fiction" (i.e. "fantasy") instead of old fashioned science fiction that relies on a combination of hard science and properly applied theoretical science to form the basis of a realistic universe. The fiction part is the characters and the story line, not the science.

**Part One**

**I Don't Freaking Believe This**

Janeway looked up from her coffee as the door opened and the other officers who were meeting with her came into the room. Chakotay, Tuvok, and Seven entered, went to the replicator, got drinks of their own, and then came over and joined her at the table for their meeting. Janeway was about to begin when the door opened and the doctor entered the room. She looked up in surprise, since he wasn't scheduled to attend this meeting.

'May I help you, Doctor?'

'I was asked to attend this meeting, Captain.'

Janeway arched her eyebrows, then looked at Chakotay. 'Is there something going on that I don't know about?'

Chakotay sighed. 'Because of the problems that we've been having recently, I wanted to go over a few things regarding treatment of the wounded and other things that fall under the doctor's area of expertise. And we're going to have to resupply soon if we're not going to run into problems on our stocks of some necessities, and some of those also fall under the doctor's area of expertise.'

'Very well. Please, have a seat, Doctor.'

The doctor sat, and Janeway began their informal meeting. 'Tuvok, what do you have to report?'

'Captain, I have been investigating the things that you requested, and Seven and I have been trying to develop more sensitive detection systems so that we have more warning of the approach of any Borg ships. We have already managed to increase our sensor sensitivity, and we are able to detect any transwarp activity much better than before. We have also increased our sensor range, but that still doesn't allow us to necessarily detect them any sooner because we can't detect them while they are still moving through the transwarp conduits. We are still trying to figure out how to do that, but for now we can only detect their entry into real space.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that Tuvok was determined to discover a way to detect the Borg before they came out of transwarp. If they could develop a system that was sensitive enough, they might even be able to detect the transwarp conduits themselves, which would allow them to map out where the Borg had been expanding their ability to travel to. It would be very helpful once they reached the Alpha quadrant if they could come up with something like that, since that would allow them to detect Borg incursions and prepare to meet them with force more quickly.

'Yes, that was part of the problem, but we can't really do anything to change the laws of physics and detect them while they're still in transwarp.'

'That may be technically true, captain, but we have detected some anomalous readings while we were trying to adjust our sensors to solve this problem.'

'What sort of anomalous readings?' Janeway was curious, and looked at Seven expectantly.

'We have found that, at the extreme limits of our current detection capabilities, we are able to determine the locations of some type of previously uncategorized gravitic anomalies in some of the systems that we've been passing through.'

'Gravitic anomalies?'

'They appear to be some sort of portal or weakness that is confined to a specific region of space within that system, captain.' Tuvok swallowed and paused briefly. 'We believe that they may actually be some sort of portal because they seem to share some of the same characteristics of a wormhole.'

'Wormholes?' Chakotay was definitely surprised.

Seven shook her head. 'Not exactly. They have some similarities in their properties, but we are certain that they are definitely not wormholes. We haven't been able to open one of them yet, so we still don't have any way to know if it is actually a portal, or if there is any way to use them to travel. We are fairly certain that they do not connect to subspace.'

Janeway looked at Tuvok. 'Do you have any ideas what they might actually connect to?'

'As Seven stated, we are not certain, Captain. We believe that they may connect to hyperspace, since the data does seem to indicate that it would fit all of the criteria for that hypothetical realm. Our main problem has been that while we can't open a portal to probe them properly or get any scans of what is on the other side, our preliminary attempts to do so have met with spectacular failures. The one probe that we managed to get any data from was destroyed completely before it even really entered the other side of the portal. We believe that there was leakage during our attempt to open a portal. The explosion that destroyed our probe appears to have been caused by antimatter.'

'Antimatter?' Janeway was definitely not expecting that. Antimatter was an extremely hard to find, rare substance in the universe, and for it to be abundant enough to leak through once a portal was opened would seem to indicate that it was concentrated there for some reason. That was an amazing discovery in itself, and could have serious implications for the entire Federation if this allowed them to find a way to harvest antimatter in even greater quantities than they currently could.

Seven nodded. 'Yes, sir. It appears to have impacted with our probe. We believe that adding energy shielding will protect another probe and keep this from happening again, but right now our resources are strained, so we haven't built another probe to explore this possibility. We have also been devoting more time to other avenues of research that are more germane to the problems that you wished us to address.'

Janeway nodded. 'So we can detect Borg ships coming out of transwarp at much greater distances than before, but we still can't detect them before they enter real space. What about this possible hyperspace discovery? Could we possibly use that as a form of travel that the Borg couldn't use? Would it be possible for us to use it to somehow shorten our journey and find our way back to the Alpha quadrant even more quickly?'

Tuvok appeared to be considering the problem for a moment before replying. 'We can't answer those questions properly without more research, captain. The existence of hyperspace has been theorized for a long time, but actually proving its existence and discovering its properties has eluded us so far. If there is a lot of antimatter within hyperspace, then it would be a very dangerous place for us to try to enter without taking a lot of serious precautions. We would need proper shielding, and I'm not certain that our warp engines would be capable of operating there.'

'Not at all?' Chakotay was definitely surprised.

'I'm fairly certain that we could maintain our matter-antimatter reactions and generate energy without any real problems. Our impulse engines shouldn't interact with anything there, so they would work, as would our thrusters. But generating a warp bubble could potentially cause problems, since we don't know the properties of hyperspace itself or any potential interactions that creating a warp field could cause within that realm. And if there is that much antimatter in hyperspace, I'm not confident that our shielding would be sufficient to protect us from interactions if we were moving at any speed.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that even small impacts from dust that got through the shields would be much worse than anything that they normally had to deal with in real space simply because antimatter would have not only the direct kinetic effects, but would also have the secondary explosive interactions with the very matter that comprised their physical hull plating. Those reactions would be extremely powerful in terms of force generation relative to the size and mass of the impacting particle. 'That sounds like a lot of definite drawbacks to using hyper for travel. So why are you expressing such interest in exploring this possibility further, despite our limited resources?'

Seven sighed. 'Captain, there are always drawbacks with any new, experimental, or unknown system. Warp travel was very dangerous and difficult until its laws were understood and technology was finally developed to allow it to be utilized properly. But even the Borg don't have the capability to enter and use hyperspace. That would give us a method of travel that they lack, and would help to offset their current ability to use transwarp conduits through subspace to travel faster than we can at warp speeds in real space and limit our ability to detect, follow, or even track them while they are moving from one system to another.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that the ability that Seven was referring to did give the Borg a significant tactical advantage, while being able to use hyperspace while the Borg could not would allow unarmed ships or ships that found themselves overmatched to escape from Borg attacks.

Seven continued speaking while Janeway thought that through. 'If our readings and deductions are correct, the portals appear to be similar to a wormhole in some respects. Hyperspace could actually allow us to connect from one point to another point in real space in a manner similar to passage through a wormhole. Granted, there would probably be more time spent in hyperspace than there would be for travel through a wormhole, but the distance and movement between those two points wouldn't be through real space, so it would theoretically be possible to travel great distances relative to real space in very short time periods without any relativistic effects. Essentially, it would be a shortcut from one system to the next.'

Janeway looked pleased. 'That would be nice, especially if it made it possible for us to get back to the Alpha quadrant much sooner. But you're not touting that possibility, so what is the problem?'

Tuvok raised an eyebrow. 'If each of these portals that we have discovered is like a wormhole, the problem is that the destination that it leads to is predetermined before we even enter hyperspace. We have no way of knowing where each portal leads because we have no idea, even theoretically, about what causes these hyper points to form or how they operate. With no information on how they form or what criteria there is to make them connect to each other, it would be unwise to speculate about how they could possibly interconnect, though there is sufficient information to believe that there is some type of connection to another point in space, so logically we could safely assume that they form some type of connection similar, at least in some respects, to a wormhole. But just entering them and attempting to travel to our destination would be both unwise and illogical. It would be equivalent to going through a huge maze without a map and trying to randomly explore until we actually ran into a system that was near where we wanted to go.'

Janeway looked pained as she realized what that implied. It would be great once they had a lot of ships to explore and map things, return, and allow them to correlate all of the data that had been collected and generate hyper maps that showed not only how systems connected in hyperspace, but how they were located in real space. But until they had that map, it would probably be quicker for them to travel in real space or stick to warp. It would definitely make sure that they didn't wander aimlessly for decades and only then discover that they were no closer to their goal than they had been when they started. While it could end up leading them to a system that was very close to the Alpha quadrant, it could also take them farther from the Alpha quadrant or even lead them to some system in the Gamma or Beta quadrants if the theoretical hyper streams were powerful enough. At least they knew how far they were from the Alpha quadrant, which general direction they had to travel in order to reach the Federation, and they had at least some idea from their previous interactions with other species in the Delta quadrant about what there was near their position. She wasn't willing to take that kind of gamble with her ship and her crew, since it was definitely a very long shot.

'OK. As long as it doesn't take too much of our time or resources, you can continue to study this possibility and learn as much as you can. We are a science vessel, and this would definitely be a discovery of major scientific importance for our culture. And even if we can't use this information to help ourselves right now, we know that we will eventually make our way back to the Federation and StarFleet, and they will be able to use it. Perhaps, one day, we'll be able to help them learn how to use this discovery to develop even better methods of reliable transportation. Warp travel certainly isn't as safe, reliable, and without side effects as it was once believed to be.'

Chakotay nodded. 'Captain, about the recent incidents with the Borg and others...'

Janeway nodded. 'Yes, Chakotay. We've been having to fight much too often, and it's costing us in terms of both injuries and resources. Do you have any possible solutions or suggestions?'

'Other than trying to avoid detection, we really can't do much in that regard without affecting our timeline. We know where we are heading, and other than necessary detours around star systems or space that is claimed by some group that we haven't discovered or heard of from others that we've met in our travels yet, deviating from our course will only add unnecessary time to a journey that is already going to require several decades for us to complete. Unfortunately, the Borg are also aware of our destination, and they know what our general course has to be in order to reach it within our lifetimes.'

Janeway nodded. There wasn't any way to put it more clearly and succinctly than that.

The doctor spoke up. 'We are having so many injuries that it's affecting the ability of the crew to perform their jobs properly, captain. Even injured crewmen who perform critical jobs are having to keep working in order to keep us alive, and some of them aren't recovering fully or healing properly before they have to resume their normal duties. This is detrimental to their overall health and well being, and it is going to have cumulative effects on their bodies. He hesitated, then continued in a more calm and serious tone. 'If we don't do something to alter this trend, things are only going to get worse as time goes on. Those who were injured are even more likely to suffer additional injuries or aggravations to their old injuries later, and if something isn't done to correct this problem, it could even cause them to have shortened lifespans or become too crippled to be capable of fulfilling their duties properly.'

Janeway nodded. The doctor was right, and she knew it. But they were operating with only ninety three personnel on board, including the children, and there wasn't much that she could do about them having a crew that was so far below their normal minimum complement for this ship type. While the ship could function with a crew this small, it certainly wasn't going to function at full efficiency around the clock, and there were going to be gaps because the crew couldn't continue working without any breaks at all for long periods of time. It wasn't like they could just stop on some planet, recruit new crew members, and train them before putting them to work. They barely had the resources to keep their current crew alive, and even minimal training of new recruits would require years before they were properly trained to perform their job duties on their own without almost constant supervision. And not only would that training require some of her crew to devote their time to the training itself, but they would have to support and feed the nonproductive crew members throughout their training as well. Even if she were willing to risk all of that, there was still the problem of being able to make sure that the new recruits could be trusted not to betray Voyager or try to take over the ship for themselves. The Kazon had certainly proven that point in their repeated attacks on Voyager and their attempts to take over the ship.

'I am aware of that, doctor, and we have been doing what we could to avoid any fights whenever possible. But you are aware that several of our latest encounters occurred simply because we were ambushed without any warning whatsoever.'

'We may have a solution that would allow us to avoid at least some of those ambushes, captain.' Chakotay paused briefly, then continued as Janeway looked directly at him, her interest obviously piqued. 'We know a lot about both Romulan and Klingon cloaking technology, and how it works, and B'elana knows enough about it to construct a cloaking device.'

'The Federation has treaties that restrict our use or development of cloaking technology, Chakotay.'

'That may be true, captain, but we are in the Delta quadrant, and there are no other Federation, Romulan, or Klingon ships in this entire quadrant. We're doing nothing to threaten the peace, security, or borders of either the Romulan or Klingon empires, and even they would have to admit that, realistically, we're seventy years from reaching their borders at our highest sustainable warp speed. Cloaking this ship would do nothing at all to threaten the safety of anyone in the Alpha quadrant, but it would keep us safer. The Borg could still detect us because they have the technology to detect cloaked ships. But the Kazon would no longer be able to detect or attack us while we were cloaked. And most of the other cultures that we've encountered seem to have no knowledge of this type of technology, either. We could actually avoid many confrontations with some of the more xenophobic or isolationist cultures that would otherwise object to our travel through their area of influence.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that they could cut time off of their trip by simply going straight through some of the space that had been claimed by civilizations that objected to others passing through their space. It would save time, as well as limiting their contacts and conflicts substantially. And that would significantly reduce all of the problems that the doctor was worried about as well. 'Cloaking devices also require a lot of energy. And they would cause a lot of additional wear on our dilithium crystals, wouldn't they?'

Chakotay nodded, conceding the point. 'We can get enough dilithium crystals to replace them. And we should be able to find more dilithium to replace them long before our current stock of crystals is depleted.'

Janeway conceded that point, since they had been able to find replacements for their dilithium crystals in the past. It was likely that they could find more replacements, or even find the dilithium and shape the crystals themselves if they had to. That might not be as efficient as using perfectly shaped crystals, but that problem could be overcome simply by harvesting even more of them when they found them.

'OK. The Borg could detect us, but the Kazon couldn't. The Kazon have been more of a threat lately than the Borg, though other groups and civilizations that we've run into have been responsible for the majority of our problems the past few years. They just haven't been as dogged in their attempts to pursue us as the Kazon have. And I agree with your assessment that it's more likely that they won't be able to detect us while we're cloaked, so that will reduce our risk of hostile encounters overall. Do we actually have the resources available to make the cloaking device?'

Chakotay nodded. 'I asked B'elana about it, and she seems to think that we have all of the materials, and none of the necessary components are critical for anything else.'

'And how long would it take for her to construct a working cloaking device?'

'A couple of days for most of the construction. But we'd have to stop in a system, send out a shuttle, and then use it to determine how effectively the cloaking field works and make the final adjustments to make sure that we're as invisible and undetectable as we can get. We have to figure that our sensors are as good as those that anyone else in the Delta quadrant has access to, and since we know what to look for, if we can't detect the ship, then nobody else should be able to.'

Janeway nodded. 'Good. We'll stop at the next system and do that. And Tuvok, you and Seven can use the time there to see how many of these potential hyper points you can discover in that system while we're there.'

Tuvok nodded. 'Very well, captain.'

The others got up and left, but Janeway called out before Chakotay could leave. 'Chakotay?'

Chakotay turned, looking at her inquisitively. 'Yes?'

'Make sure that we look for dilithium crystals from now on. I really don't want to risk damaging our crystals or wearing them out more quickly than they normally would, but you're right about the need to do something to keep everyone from attacking us. We're in a war of attrition, and they're eventually going to wear us down with sheer numbers, despite their relatively inferior overall tech levels. We just don't have the support, supplies, or population base to sustain us over time with our current resource requirements. We were undermanned from the very start, and our losses are eventually going to cripple us and make it impossible for us to continue our journey safely.'

'I will, captain. And don't worry about the crystals. We have time to find more before we are even on our last set of crystals, and we have enough replacements. The modifications that B'elana has made to many of our other systems, especially the power relays and the shields, has increased our ability to buffer any feedback and reduce the amount of stress that it puts on our crystals.'

Janeway nodded and smiled, knowing that sudden stresses like that during combat were responsible for many of the failures that were normally associated with dilithium crystals. 'Thanks, Chakotay.'

Chakotay nodded and left, leaving her there to finish her coffee and relax before she reported for her duty shift on the bridge. Shifts were longer than normal simply because they didn't even have a full crew complement, so everyone worked harder and endured longer hours to make up the difference. The entire Delta quadrant was definitely a dangerous place to be, or so it seemed from their encounters so far. If you had anything that was technologically advanced or worth a lot, there were a number of cultures or groups out there who were more than willing to steal it or attack you and take it from you by force. So far, they had managed to survive, but the toll that doing so was taking on their crew was starting to show, as the doctor had pointed out during the recent meeting. They couldn't keep running short handed forever, and they certainly weren't going to be replacing their numbers if they didn't start doing something to increase their population. There had been losses ever since they had arrived in the Delta quadrant, and not all of them had been the initial crew losses caused by the caretaker. Some of those losses had been offset by the addition of the Maquis members who had also been drawn to the Delta quadrant with them by the caretaker, but that was barely enough to allow them to perform the minimum functions that they were currently capable of maintaining.

Janeway sighed, shaking her head morosely. There were problems, and there were possible solutions. But right now, she really didn't see anything to connect her problems with the solutions that were possible for her command to achieve right now. Perhaps in the morning, something would present itself. In any event, they were going to have to do something soon, or there were going to be some serious long term problems. They could only keep this ship running for so long with their current resource limitations, and even if the crew survived and could handle the stresses of their current duty roster, the ship wasn't going to survive another seventy plus years of constant service under the current conditions.

Virginia shook her head, sighing softly. 'Do they have anything GOOD to report?'

'Not at present, Ginny. The scouts have been out searching, but all of the records and databases that we have captured from the Dominion so far indicate that the Borg are here, and so have the inhabitants of the civilizations that we've talked to in various systems that we've explored. The problem is that nobody in this place even uses hyper, so there are no hyper maps. Most of them don't even know that hyper exists, and most of the ones that do are only aware of it as a theoretical possibility. They are seriously stuck on this warp drive crap.'

Gary chuckled. 'Yeah. Talk about sticking their heads in the sand. They come up with some way to do FTL travel that works, don't even bother to research the side effects and dangers, and then they actually use it as their standard of who is technologically advanced enough to join them as equals.'

Margaret shook her head. 'Gary, be nice. Yeah, it took them a long time to actually discover some of the real risks in using warp travel, but they weren't ever capable of going above warp five for the first few centuries that they even had that capability, so the amount of material that they were dragging into subspace was so miniscule that they really couldn't detect the effects until they'd had time to accumulate. And it really isn't like they have so many freaking ships traveling around at high speeds that they altered things very rapidly, you know.'

'OK, I'll concede the point. But their arrogance still irks me. Even we examine every type of tech that we discover, see how it works, determine if we can make it work better, or how we can alter it for our own uses, and all like that. But we trade with anyone, regardless of their tech level, so long as they're friendly.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Back to the topic at hand, please. What do the scouts have to report?'

'We haven't found a way to reach any system that the Borg are using. To be honest, I'm not sure that we'd find one even if we stayed here and kept hunting them.'

'Why is that?'

'They use warp travel as well, and they go from system to system through real space, or at least traveling as if they were in real space while they're inside their warp bubbles. Their other system of travel is some type of transwarp conduits. From the records that the Federation gave us, it's some type of system they've set up where they've built routes through subspace that connect one point in space to another. It's a lot faster than warp travel, and puts less stress on their ships because the tunnels that they travel through don't give them a lot of resistance to their travel. They also don't have to worry about micrometeorites and other things hitting their shields, since they are traveling through subspace.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'So if we do manage to find the Borg, it's going to be by sheer luck.'

'That pretty much sums it up. In the meantime, we can still hammer any traces of Dominion forces that we run across. As for any others, we'll just have to see how they respond to our presence when we get there. If they're friendly, we can trade and try to get information. If they're isolationists, we can leave.'

'And if they're aggressive?'

Kahmmhi rolled her eyes as she looked over at Gary. 'We can always drop the stealth on the PUFF and let them figure out that they're going to lose any pissing contest that they can start. We'll defend ourselves from any real attacks, and just leave if they're aggressive.' She smiled, and Gary didn't like the way that it reminded him of her grandfather. 'Unless, of course, they pose some sort of risk to humanity. In which case, we'll do a little quick behavior modification and convince them that humans are our friends.'

Gary nodded. Anything THAT stupid and aggressive deserved to die. 'Yeah, the troops will like that mantra. But, seriously, do we actually have a plan?'

'Yeah. Keep scouting, and see if we can find one of the areas where there are concentrations of systems that are inhabited. We're not skipping between systems for years and risking taking forever to get back to our starting point. Yeah, if something comes up, we can miss the first window without any problem, and that won't really piss me off. But if we get stuck here for a long time, or if that window isn't working like it should be, we'll give the freaking Borg something to worry about.'

Virginia nodded. 'We've got the tech to take them out without any problems. And I don't care how well they can modulate their shields, they're not going to like us. Not only are all of our lasers much stronger than they're used to dealing with, but we have much greater range than anything that they've ever encountered before, and we can randomly cycle our lasers to fire independently on different frequencies, and they can't modulate their shield frequencies to account for that.' She chuckled. 'Not to mention what one salvo from our railguns would do to their shields and whatever they have behind them. Federation records show that they had problems dealing with the Borg, but they were able to damage their ships and even take them out. We'll do well enough that we won't have to worry about them.'

'I don't intend to take chances. Until we know that they are not a serious threat, we will work on ways to maximize the damage that we dish out before the Borg can learn anything or do anything to try to compensate for our attacks. Railguns and alternating frequencies on the lasers is good. What about other things? Just in case?'

'Well, our standard attack with either PT boats or HATs should really be a problem for them. Nobody in this galaxy uses AM on a measurable scale, and their shields and ships can't possibly stand up to salvos any better than a Consortium battleship can. And we do still have the specials that we've been making since the skirmish at DS9. We have more than enough sunbusters and Q-bombs to handle anything that we've been warned about by anyone that we've run across since we got here.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'What's your opinion, Krohn?'

Krohn smiled. 'We're ready for the Borg. At least we know that they exist, and we have some idea of what they are capable of doing with their ships and technology. If we do run into some of their ships, they may try to assimilate us, not knowing what kind of a threat we truly are.'

Kahmmhi grinned. 'In that case, we'll make sure that they don't get a chance to learn from their mistakes. We'll hit them hard and fast, and take them out long before they can do anything to get away and warn the others. Like my grandfather says, keep the learning curve hard and steep, and the odds should remain in your favor for a very long time to come.'

Krohn nodded, appearing satisfied with that idea. Kahmmhi sighed. 'Go ahead and return to your ships, and we'll move to the next system once all of the scouts have returned.'

Jason shook his head, smiling as he read his orders. 'OK, boys and girls, we're back up on the rotation, and we get to go out hunting for things to kill. Dominion forces are definitely targets, and so are Borg. As of right now, everything else is on the wait and see list. Any questions?'

'How many systems out do we get to go?'

'Three. We're just exploring and killing time right now, really. There's nothing that we know about this entire quadrant other than some stellar mapping and a few areas that have been explored and were included in the captured databases. Unfortunately, nobody here uses hyper, so explored areas are all localized into regional clusters in physical space.'

The pilots in his talon nodded, realizing exactly what that meant. Unless they hit the golden needle in the freaking haystack and came out directly into a system of interest, they were probably years from the next system if they had to use hyper skipping to cross the interstellar void, and that was a monumental waste of time. So they were just training and exploring to fill in some maps and kill some time before they returned to see if they could get back home and find the rest of their Clan. They could deal with that. A few decades was a long mission, and wasn't what they normally did, but it wasn't like their family was going to grow old and die waiting for them to return in just a few decades, or even a few centuries. About the only things that would really change would be that their kids would be out of the household and leading their own lives as adults. Their wives or husbands might think they were dead and get on with their lives, and that did happen sometimes. Other than that, for the Clan, life simply went on.

When they reached the next system, Seven and Paris went out in a shuttle to do the testing while the cloaking field was turned on. After several hours and several adjustments, their sensors were no longer able to detect Voyager at all, even when the ship was moving through the system at warp speed. And best of all, the only time that they could detect Voyager was when they fired their phasers. The cloaking was strong enough that it didn't drop enough for the ship to be detectable, and they still couldn't see it when it fired, but the computer could analyze the sensor data and determine the point of origin for the phaser beams.

'This works even better than I thought it would.'

Seven nodded in agreement. 'I concur. I had believed that we would have to do many more tests and make more adjustments to the field before we were able to achieve such effective results.'

Paris laughed. 'You've been hanging around with Tuvok too long. You're starting to talk like he does.'

Seven smiled, raised an eyebrow, and looked at him closely. 'And is there some type of problem with being scientific and specific when we're dealing with the results of our latest scientific endeavors?'

'No. Just thought I'd let you know. In case you hadn't noticed.'

'Captain, the ship is completely invisible to both our long and short range sensors.'

'That's great. B'elana will be very pleased to know that her device works so well. I'll have her decloak the ship and you can dock with us. There aren't any anomalies in this system, so you won't be able to do any more work on trying to discover what is on the other side of them.'

'Affirmative, captain. We'll be home before you know it.'

Seven looked over at Tom Paris, then resumed working on the adjustments to the device that had been installed in their shuttle.

'How is it coming?'

'I should be ready to try the test soon. I'm making the final adjustments now.'

'And if this works?'

'We will probably lose the probe within seconds. Definitely within minutes. If it makes it into the anomaly, it will almost certainly be instantly destroyed. If it doesn't, and we manage to make an opening, there will probably be antimatter released from the anomaly, and it will destroy the probe. How long that takes depends on how much antimatter is released, the distance from the anomaly, and the dispersal rate of the antimatter.'

Tom nodded, smiling at her. 'Thanks for explaining everything. Harry already told me that much.'

Seven gave him a very disparaging look. 'We are working with something that we know very little about, and most of what we do know about this particular phenomenon is all based on theory.' Her response was very droll.

'I know. And it is very dangerous. But I was wondering about something. If hyperspace is full of antimatter, it's really great and we could use that to collect antimatter to use for power, but how are we supposed to do anything useful with hyperspace itself? I mean, it's not like we could just take the ship into hyperspace and go somewhere, right?'

'Not at present, but that may be possible in the future. Currently our shields and hulls aren't built to withstand that type of environment, and there is also the problem of propulsion to be considered.'

'Propulsion? Why would that be a problem?'

'We can't assume that our warp engines would work in hyperspace. While we could definitely use our current matter-antimatter reactors to generate energy, there is no evidence to suppose that we could actually generate or maintain a stable warp bubble. Without that, warp drives would be nonfunctional.'

'OK. What about our sublight engines?'

'Impulse power would be much more likely to work, but the reduced speed would make travel through hyper impractical for vast distances. And while we know that maneuvering thrusters would definitely work under those conditions, they are even less desirable as a primary propulsion method than impulse engines would be.'

'So, when would we know enough to determine the viability of travel through hyperspace?'

Seven gave him a very disapproving glare. 'Not until after I finish these calibrations and we do our tests. Once we analyze the data from this test, we should have enough data to determine how to get a much better test and gather enough data to answer our questions on the conditions that actually exist in hyperspace. That will allow us to determine what propulsion sources will and will not work.'

Tom grinned sheepishly and began fiddling with his controls, trying to look busy while giving Seven enough time to finish her preparations. He'd gone and irritated her with too many questions while she was attempting to concentrate and make sure that she didn't make any mistakes during this crucial test. He knew enough from dealing with B'elana to know that letting her take her mind off of the irritation by getting focused on her work was the quickest and safest solution to his current problem.

A few minutes later, Seven smiled in satisfaction. 'There. Now we are ready to begin.'

Paris nodded, and watched as she activated some controls. There was a sudden spike in neutrino emissions, and both of them were surprised to see a light show that appeared to be very similar to the opening of a wormhole.

'That looks like a wormhole.'

Seven nodded, too engrossed in the readings that she was detecting from their probe to bother with any further response to his comment.

'There appears to be a wormhole inside hyperspace at the point of entry. The walls of the column appear to be made of pure antimatter, but the interior of the column itself is devoid of antimatter.'

'What does that mean?'

'I'm not certain. The probe seems to be moving away from us.'

'What do you mean? I thought that you turned off the propulsion system.'

'I did, but it did retain some residual inertia. A few meters per second.'

'OK, so why are you saying that the probe is moving away from us?'

'Because it is currently moving away from us much faster than that, and will soon be out of range. It appears to be approaching the wall of the column.'

There was a bright flash, and the wormhole effect disappeared and the neutrino emissions dropped to normal background levels. Paris looked over at Seven. 'What the hell just happened?'

'The probe contacted the antimatter lining the walls of the column. It was destroyed, and the opening that we had created was closed with the sudden release of energy.'

'Would our shields protect us from contact if we took this ship or the Voyager into one of these things?'

'Possibly. But I doubt that we have enough structural integrity to survive travel in there.'

'What do you mean?'

Seven showed him the structural stress and integrity readings from the probe, and Tom groaned inwardly as he saw how much stress the probe had been under before it had been destroyed by the antimatter.

'Our shields and structural integrity would never stand up to something like that.'

'Not at present. But we could modify some things to improve our ship, or to construct a small craft that was at least capable of exploring inside hyper.'

'If we had the resources.'

Seven sighed audibly. 'Yes. If we had sufficient resources.' That posed a problem. Perhaps not quite an insurmountable one, but a problem nonetheless.

Tom saw that she had all of the data that she could collect, so he quickly backed the shuttle away from the point where the wormhole had formed. 'Can we collect any of the antimatter that came through?'

Seven looked up at him curiously, then nodded as she realized what he had just asked her and the implications. 'We should be able to beam it aboard and place it inside a container with a magnetic containment field. Very good thinking. If we collect all of the antimatter that we can, we could use it for energy, or perhaps even trade it to others for the resources that we need to more thoroughly investigate this phenomenon.'

They spent the next several hours scanning the area for the antimatter that they could find, collecting it, and storing it as safely as they could. Once they returned to Voyager, they could store the antimatter properly so that it would be contained safely for long term storage. Captain Janeway would be very pleased with the outcome of this experiment. She had already realized that the probe would, in all likelihood, be lost or destroyed, but the unexpected acquisition of so much antimatter would be a very welcome bonus.

The Borg drone stared at the data that it was receiving from a long range sensor platform, seemingly perplexed by what the sensors were reporting. The data did not fit within the normal parameters, so this must be important and must be reported. It immediately sent the data to the hive queen, then waited for orders.

The hive queen examined the data carefully. This was very strange. No wormhole had ever been discovered anywhere near the location that the sensors indicated that this one had formed. Also, the wormhole had been open for a while, and had then suddenly totally collapsed. Not only had the wormhole been open much longer than a normal wormhole should be open, but the neutrino emissions coming from it had been cut off almost instantaneously. Much more quickly than any wormhole event that had ever been categorized or recorded. She sent orders to several drones, then determined to bring this event to the hive collective's attention.

After a very brief discussion and debate, the queens of the Collective determined that this was something that they should investigate. No naturally occurring phenomenon exhibited this type of behavior, so it had to be man made. This indicated a new type of technology, and as such, it was imperative that this new technology be assimilated and added to the Collective. Orders went out immediately, and a scout sphere was dispatched to investigate. Other orders were sent out as well, and a number of cubes and other ships began preparations to depart. If the scout sphere found something that was worthy of further investigation, or even more importantly, something worth assimilating that the scout force couldn't assimilate on their own, they would have a response force ready to go there to take the technology and assimilate those who created it so that everything that they had and knew could be added to the Collective. The magnitude of this technology was so great that they could not afford to risk losing this new technology.

The hive queens returned to their normal duties, and the problem was forgotten for now. One of them would check periodically to determine what progress was being made, but it would take some time for the scout sphere to reach the designated coordinates and investigate. The location was near a transwarp conduit, but it was near the terminus of that region. There wasn't much in that region that was considered to be worthy of assimilation, so the Borg Collective was concentrating their efforts on more productive regions.

And, of course, they were constantly paying at least some attention to their war with the strange species that lived in the realm of subspace. They were always at war with them. The species simply couldn't be properly assimilated, and they were constantly trying to eliminate the transwarp conduits that ran through subspace with their attacks. Most of the time they only caused minor damage, but occasionally they did manage to damage a node or disrupt a conduit until more Borg drones could be sent to make proper repairs. Most of the fighting with the aliens occurred when they attacked Borg ships that were out trying to explore or assimilate new species. So far, they hadn't actually managed to launch any major offensives against any of the major Borg population centers or transwarp hubs. They weren't able to leave subspace and enter real space in sufficient numbers or for sufficient time to actually achieve that objective yet. If they ever became capable of entering real space for long durations or sending their technology into real space to fight, the scope of the war could become much greater.

Other than the constant problem that this one species posed because of their unique situation, the only recurring problem that the Borg Collective had come across in this entire region of the galaxy was Voyager. The small Federation ship was becoming a growing threat, and so far they had managed to avoid being assimilated despite repeated attempts by the Collective to do so. The captain of the Voyager was not only very resourceful, but had actually used resources and technology that they had acquired from temporal travel to keep the Borg Collective from succeeding in assimilating Voyager on more than one occasion. This trend, and the growing threat that she personally posed to the future of the entire Collective itself, made finding and assimilating Voyager imperative.

Janeway looked at Seven and Tom, amazed at the briefing that they had just given her. 'You actually already collected that much antimatter?'

'And we already gave it to B'elana to put into our storage tanks for the reactor. She was just as surprised as you were to find out that we'd harvested enough antimatter to double the amount of antimatter that we have on board the ship.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that they had power to spare now, since they could gather asteroids or any other matter to react with it to generate their energy. That would go a long way toward making the lives of the entire crew much better, and would allow them to eliminate some of the restrictions that they currently had on energy usage. 'OK. And you said that the probe was moving inside the hyperspace conduit, or tunnel, or whatever it is?'

'Yes. It was definitely gaining momentum, captain. If we could find a way to substantially reinforce the structural integrity of a small scout craft, we could use the vast amounts of available antimatter to generate sufficient power to power shields that would definitely be strong enough to protect it while it was traveling inside such a hostile environment. We could then travel through hyperspace, explore, and learn much more about a potential way to find our way back to the Alpha quadrant much sooner than our current projections would allow. Even small trips to the other end of a conduit could allow us to begin discovering much more about the nature of hyperspace and the way in which the hyperspace conduits function, form connections, and link systems. That would allow us to modify our current understanding of hyperspace enough to modify our models and use them to extrapolate much more specific and realistic outcomes.'

Chakotay looked at her, shrugged, then looked over at Tuvok. 'What do you think, Tuvok?'

'I agree that there was some sort of force being exerted on the probe while it was inside the hyperspace conduit, and that it was gaining momentum and moving rapidly through hyperspace once it was inside the portal. But we still don't know what type of force that is, and we currently have no way to control it or allow for it. While a probe could conceivably penetrate hyperspace safely and move through the conduit to find where the portal leads to, we don't know that we could travel back to this system. We have no idea whether any of our propulsion systems would work inside hyperspace, and if there is some sort of naturally occurring force or current inside the conduit, we have no way to determine if we could use that same force to return, or if it is a fixed, one way flow of energy.'

Janeway nodded. 'Do you have an estimate or some type of evidence to show whether or not any of our current propulsion systems either could or could not function under those conditions?'

Seven spoke up before Tuvok could reply. 'The readings that we managed to collect indicate that our warp engines would be incapable of safely forming a warp bubble inside hyperspace, so warp drives could not possibly function there. Not without grave risk of an antimatter explosion inside the warp bubble.'

Janeway nodded, accepting that without comment. They'd warned her before that it was unlikely that their warp drives would function in hyperspace. While it had been possible that the theoretical models were wrong, finding out that they hadn't been wrong about this would give more credence to the other conditions that had been widely hypothesized as necessary. 'What about our other drives?'

'Impulse engines could work, but we're not certain that they'd have sufficient power to allow us to move against the force of the stream that we recorded with the probe before it was destroyed. Again, that would allow us to go through hyperspace to the next system while we were traveling with the stream, but not necessarily to return.'

Nobody said anything. Maneuvering thrusters were their only other possible solution, and they were much weaker than impulse engines. And even if there was some special set of circumstances that would allow their maneuvering thrusters to operate under those conditions, it would still require a lot of time to do the traveling.

'Do we know anything about the force that was responsible for the propulsion effect that the probe was subjected to?'

'It appears to be some sort of gravitic effect.' Tuvok responded without hesitation.

Seven nodded. 'If that is correct, we might be able to devise some sort of system that would allow us to alter the polarity of the field, which would, in effect, allow our ship or probe to move in the opposite direction.'

Tuvok nodded, considering that possibility for a moment. 'Captain, if we are able to achieve that goal, we will have discovered a way to actually create a working gravitic drive.'

Janeway knew that the scientific advancement that single achievement represented would be impressive, in and of itself, but she also knew Tuvok well enough to know that wasn't why he sounded so impressed. 'And what does that mean for us, Tuvok?'

'Captain, if it works, we not only have almost limitless power with our ability to at least open a hyper portal and collect antimatter, but we also have a propulsion system that will work in real space without requiring fuel. I don't believe that we can make it work well enough to travel faster than light, but it should be more powerful and more reliable than impulse power. And it would take almost no energy to actually power the propulsion system.'

'How is that possible?'

'The gravitic fields that seem to operate in hyper are similar to those of a pair of magnets. If you reverse the field, the far magnet will attract you toward it while the near one will repulse you from it. You will travel from one to the other without reaching a point where you're stuck between two fields of the same type. By simply reversing your polarity in relation to the field, you reverse your direction. And by altering your field by various amounts between those two points, you would be able to hold position without really using any energy at all for propulsion.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that Chakotay and Paris were both as shocked and impressed as she was. 'So this could potentially allow us to reduce our energy requirements or fuel requirements, as well as allowing us to travel faster than we normally can now when we're not in warp?'

'Yes, captain. I believe so.'

'The risk is definitely worth the potential benefit. I'll authorize the use of any nonessential resources for further studies of this phenomenon and the development of this new propulsion system.'

The others nodded, and the meeting was adjourned. Tuvok left with Seven to find B'elana and go over the next step in their research. Chakotay had some time off, and was scheduled to spend some time on the holodeck with some friends. With the acquisition of so much antimatter, and the ability to gather even more whenever they required it, they could now afford to allow much more holodeck usage. Paris had time to grab something to eat before reporting for his normal duty shift, and Janeway decided to join him, since she was coming off shift and had some free time as well.

By the time that they had everything ready for the next series of tests, Voyager was already several systems away from the site of their first experiment. Unfortunately, they couldn't detect any gravitic anomalies in this system.

'Obviously, the gravitic anomalies don't exist in every system. Which would offer some explanation as to why they haven't been found in the past. They are hard to detect, and they don't exist everywhere. And they can't be detected by our sensors unless we are scanning while using much different frequencies than we normally use.'

Janeway looked confused. 'If our sensors don't detect them normally, how were we able to discover them in the first place?'

Tuvok looked at Seven, who swallowed, then nodded. 'I was modifying some of our sensors in an attempt to detect Borg ships that were in transwarp. There were several possible methods that seemed to have a high probability of success theoretically, so I was testing them out when we first detected the weak gravitic anomalies in some of the systems that we were passing through.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that was within the orders that Seven had for her operations in astronavigation as part of her duties.

'Since you mentioned it, did you also discover a way to detect transwarp signatures? Something that works better than our current sensor abilities?'

'I believe so, but I won't be certain until we actually have an encounter with the Borg or we can verify that there is a Borg vessel in transwarp near an area that we are passing through. If the detection system works as well as I believe it should, we will have greatly increased our detection capabilities as far as Borg vessels are concerned.'

'Good. Let me know how that goes. So, since there are no gravitic anomalies in this system, you obviously can't perform the latest tests that you were wanting to perform, and you certainly can't harvest any more antimatter.'

Seven nodded. 'That is correct, captain. We might be able to open a portal to hyperspace artificially in a system that didn't have any naturally occurring portals, but it would require the expenditure of much more energy than using one of the gravitic anomalies that we have discovered would, and we can't be certain that we can really design something that would work. However, we can still try to test out some of our theories on the gravitic drive systems by performing some tests in the holodecks, since we are no longer as limited on our power consumption there.'

Janeway nodded. Even with her designating one holodeck specifically for full time use for scientific studies that had been approved, their remaining two holodecks were now still available around the clock, and the amount of holodeck time that each crew member had been given for recreational purposes was much greater than it had been before Seven and Paris had found a way to easily collect vast amounts of antimatter. If there had been a gravitic anomaly in this system, they wouldn't have even been required to risk losing a probe in order to open it enough to collect the antimatter that came through the opening while a connection to hyperspace was being maintained.

'Very well. Conduct what studies you can in the holodecks, and we'll see what we can do in the next system if we can find any gravitic anomalies there.'

The Borg queen in command of the scout sphere looked perplexed. They were in the correct system, and they could detect residual neutrino signatures inside the system, indicating that the readings that had been obtained had been correct, and that there was something here worth investigating. But there was no sign of a wormhole or of anything else that could have possibly generated them anywhere inside the system. She mentally queried the drone who was running their scans, then waited for the results.

Ten minutes later, there was no answer possible. Nothing made sense. There was still no known source for the formation of the neutrinos that they had detected, and all scans had verified that there was no wormhole in this system, cyclic or otherwise.

The queen contacted the Collective, and gave them the report.

'This is very unusual. Something should be there. Have you checked for any traces of unknown species or ships using unknown technology?'

'There is nothing within our scanner range, and nothing has been detected, even at extremely long range.'

'Remain there and observe. Make sure that you scan for similar signatures. If one is detected, begin moving toward it immediately and attempt to close on that location and identify the source. We will send more ships out to join you if you detect anything. If this is not some natural phenomenon, it must be assimilated. The Collective must acquire this new capability, and it must be placed under our control.'

'Compliance.'

Three systems away, they had finally found more gravitic anomalies. Paris was thrilled. There were four of them inside the system. Seven was less thrilled and much more perplexed by the discovery. Four was much different than the one that they had discovered before. Four meant that if these actually were conduits of some sort that connected to similar points in other systems, they could each lead to different destinations. This could be a very important discovery, if it were true. One anomaly meant that there could be a connection to another single point, like a wormhole. The fact that there were four of them meant that there could be a series of connections or interconnections, and dramatically increased the probability that this could actually be used as a method of traveling across the entire galaxy, or at least those parts of it that were connected in this manner. It would at least allow someone who could use it to move from one system that had anomalies to another.

Tuvok agreed with her assessment, and they began discussing the possible ramifications while Paris carefully maneuvered their shuttle into position.

'I'm at the first anomaly.'

'Give us a minute, and we'll begin testing. We believe that we have a way to retrieve the probe. If so, that will allow us to test the new propulsion system.'

When they were ready, Paris maneuvered into position and they launched the probe. They were all treated to the sight of the wormhole opening, followed by the probe moving through the aperture. After it was picking up speed, it suddenly stopped and held position for a second, then began moving quickly back toward them. Paris maneuvered suddenly as the probe came out of the aperture at a high rate of speed and almost collided with their shuttle. It was still moving past them at a higher rate of speed than the best impulse engines could manage when the aperture suddenly closed behind it.

'We should gather the antimatter as quickly as possible.'

Tuvok shook his head. 'We need to stop the probe. It's still moving across the system.'

Seven nodded, complying with his orders, and sent the commands to the probe. In the meantime, Paris began moving through the area and locking onto the chunks and particles of antimatter that they detected, beaming it into the containment fields that they had set up for this trip.

'What the hell happened with the probe?'

'It was moving at a given rate of speed inside hyperspace, and when it entered normal space, it simply retained that momentum.'

Paris shook his head. 'That can't be it. I wasn't watching the instruments that closely because I was too busy trying to avoid a collision, but I know that it was still accelerating when it went past us.'

Tuvok checked their sensor readings and quickly confirmed that Paris was correct.

Seven looked at Tuvok and smiled. 'Well, we've managed to develop a gravitic drive that actually works. And it seems that it works much better than we were expecting.' She looked at Paris and asked, 'How fast was it moving?'

'Three light seconds per hour. Equivalent to full impulse.'

Tuvok raised his eyebrows. 'Impressive. How much energy was required to achieve that speed?'

Seven began a series of queries to the probe while they were crossing the system to recover it. After a minute, she shook her head in disbelief. 'I'm unable to calculate the amount of energy required.'

Tuvok looked perplexed. 'Then how much energy was consumed from the power cells?'

'Negligible amounts. Barely enough to register. That's why I can't calculate how much energy it took.'

Paris looked at both of them in disbelief. 'That's impossible. That probe is small, but getting it up to that speed and having it cross that distance? There has to be some energy requirement.'

'Most of the energy that was required to get it up to speed seems to have been provided by the anomaly. And once it entered normal space, it didn't require much energy at all to keep traveling.'

Paris nodded. 'How about we do another experiment, then?'

Seven looked at him expectantly, aware of the nuances that the tone of his voice could imply. She knew very well that Paris had a tendency to take what the captain considered to be unnecessary risks at times. 'What type of experiment?'

'We need to cross the system to the other anomalies in order to check them out, correct?'

'Yes. What is your point?'

'We don't need to do that at warp. Input the coordinates for the next anomaly and let's follow the probe there and determine how much energy it requires to travel there. We can monitor it for stresses, and if everything is within normal parameters, we can try to see if we can get even more speed out of it.'

Seven and Tuvok discussed the merits of that idea for a few moments, and then contacted Janeway to get her permission to perform the experiment that Tom had just suggested. After hearing their comments, she approved the plan without reservations. The risk to the probe was minimal, and the potential gains that the information would provide them was immense.

Seven began inputting commands, and soon they were chasing the probe across the system to the next anomaly. It took several hours to reach the nearest anomaly, but they had actually managed to get the probe up to almost four light seconds per hour in real space. When it finally reached their objective, even Seven was surprised to discover that the energy consumption was still negligible.

'The propulsion system seems to require almost no energy at all. There is some drain on the system, but it is negligible.'

'If we could rig up something like this for Voyager, we could make the ship even faster when we're not using warp. And we wouldn't even have to worry about fuel for the impulse engines at all.'

Tuvok looked concerned. 'There are still structural stresses to be considered, Mr. Paris.'

'Can't we allow for that?'

Tuvok looked thoughtful for a moment before replying. 'Perhaps, if we had a StarFleet shipyard or repair docks to make a major overhaul, it would be possible. But I'm not certain that we have either the manpower or the resources to attempt modifications to Voyager on that scale. It would require us to reinforce structural integrity throughout the ship, and possibly to alter or enhance our current inertial dampeners.'

Seven nodded. 'But with the energy surplus that we have available to us now, we could afford to double our current number of inertial dampeners, and that would significantly increase our structural integrity.'

Tuvok considered her argument carefully. It had some merit. 'Perhaps. But we might have to build another matter-antimatter conversion reactor just to power them. Even with all of the antimatter that we can collect, there are still limits as to how much energy our current reactor can produce safely.'

Paris and Seven both stopped, knowing that was something that wasn't going to happen any time soon. They simply didn't have the manpower or resources to attempt any type of modifications of that magnitude right now.

'Well, at least we'll have some very good discoveries to share with StarFleet once we actually manage to finally make it home. And they'll have the support, manpower, and resources to be able to utilize and implement them properly.'

Tuvok and Seven nodded, agreeing with Paris. They began setting up for their second entry into hyperspace in one day, making sure that they programmed in the commands for the probe to stop and hold position once it reentered normal space. They were going to explore each of the four anomalies before they called it a day, and they intended to get the best scans of each anomaly that they could get so that they could compare the four different anomalies to determine if they were all the same or if they were just similar in nature. Everything that they could learn about even minor differences between the anomalies would allow them to learn more about hyperspace and its potential uses. And they also intended to collect a lot of antimatter. There was no sense in letting it go to waste, and collecting it made sure that it wasn't floating around aimlessly through space, posing a potential hazard to any matter that it came into contact with. Since their shuttle and Voyager represented the largest concentrations of matter in the area that they were concerned about, avoiding the problem from the start only made sense.

The hive queen stopped giving orders in mid thought and concentrated her full attention on the message that had just been sent from the drone who was running their long range scans. They had detected another of the strange new wormholes opening and closing. It was several systems away, and it would take them several more days at high warp speed to reach that system. She notified the Collective, and her ship began moving toward their objective immediately.

They had been under way for several hours when another report was brought to her attention. Another strange wormhole opening. It was very similar to the first one, but appeared to be slightly different in nature. The hive queen informed the Collective of this discovery, and was informed that another Borg task force was being sent to reinforce the response force that had already been dispatched. They were already traveling to join her at the highest possible speed. Whatever it was that they were following had access to some sort of technology that the Borg Collective had never even heard of, and it was imperative that this new technology be assimilated and added to their Collective.

Jason couldn't believe how dull and boring this recon patrol was. They were three jumps out from the fleet now, and were about to head back once they checked the hyper points inside this system and mapped out how many of them there were. Their orders were to go out for three systems, so they wouldn't be going through the newly discovered hyper points to add their destinations to the maps that they'd been making of hyper in this region.

'Uh, Jason, I've got something weird on our long range scans.'

'What is it?'

'I'm not really sure. Something is moving through the area at a high rate of speed, but I'm not sure what it is. It's not registering for mass, but I have an energy signature. I think it's actually moving in subspace, and that's masking our ability to determine the mass.'

'That could be Borg. They use subspace. That's where they build their transwarp conduit systems.'

'If they are, they're headed through this region. I'm detecting three or four energy signatures moving through in sequence.'

'Too bad we have no real maps of this region. Any idea where they're headed?'

'I can give you a general direction, but after that...'

Jason nodded, and Cherry calculated out the direction for him after Jane gave her the readings.

'I know that it's a long shot, but have we explored ANY systems along their route?'

Cherry began going over the nav data using star charts, which was a real pain in the ass as far as Jason was concerned. The comp took half an hour to do the conversions, having spent half of that time just calculating their current position in real space, since they hadn't done those conversions before. It was a lot easier to let the big comps on the main ship do that once they returned. They just mapped hyper, and took the astro readings just to let the comp map out what systems were connected, and where they were in relation to each other in real space.

'Uh, we actually got two or three hits in the region that they're going through. Systems that we've mapped that are along that general vector. One was explored several years ago, one a few years after we hammered the Founders' home planet, and one was mapped out about three months ago by one of the other recon talons.'

Jason smiled, and contacted Jenny immediately. They were going to be hauling ass and playing catch up if she responded like he thought that she was going to once she received this news, but it was worth the effort. They might have finally found the Borg. If that was the case, there were going to be one hell of a lot of happy Assault Marines. IF they could actually get the Borg into the same system as their fleet and get a chance to board their ships.

Virginia smiled as she read the report that Jason had sent back to the fleet. 'This sounds promising. What do you think, Kahmmhi?'

'Recall all of the scouts, and let's head for those systems. Figure out the one that you think is most likely to let us catch them, and get us there.'

'Well, we can reach the first system in three weeks. The second one is about four weeks away, but if we miss them in the first system, it will take us seven weeks to reach it from the second system because we don't have any way to connect the two other than through where we are right now, or right at it.'

'What about the third system?'

'It connects to the first system. About a week out from it. If we miss them there because they're moving through too fast for us to catch them or they don't come out of transwarp, even at their best speed, or at least the best speed that the Federation knows that they are capable of achieving in transwarp, we should be able to reach the third system at least a week before they can get there.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Well, then, let's check out door number one, and if that doesn't pan out, we'll go for door number three. How long before all of our scouts can catch up with us?'

'Too long. Some of them are going to miss the party, and they're going to be hurting if we don't leave one of the ships here to take them on board. Unless you want to order them to stop on a rock in one of the systems that they have to travel through to replenish their consumables.'

'No. Leave an assault frigate and a SAC. How far behind us will they be?'

'Two weeks.'

'They can catch up to us, then. We'll make sure that our comsat network is up as we go, so they'll be in constant contact with us. Pick two, then let's get this show on the road.'

'Laura, tell Gary and Donna the good news. Get everyone else ready to move out. If we're lucky, we're going to be hunting Borg in less than a month.'

Laura nodded and began issuing orders. Everyone on the bridge was busy preparing for their departure. Kahmmhi left the bridge, followed by her Shadows. They didn't need her getting in the way right now, and she could use a good workout. Just the thought of finally meeting the Borg had her worked up, and she needed to get herself under control before she dealt with them. As grandpa had constantly told her when she was a little girl, you had to be frosty before you were really ready for combat. Otherwise, your emotions controlled you, and that was always a bad thing. Emotions were there for you to use. Controlling them gave you more energy, motivation, and focus, and helped you overcome your limitations when you were just too wiped out to go on any longer. Lehr had joked about "Frosty", but Kahmmhi knew that was just to keep her from being too scared. She had seen the cold, merciless depths of her grandfather's eyes when he was in combat, and she knew that space had more mercy and compassion than her grandfather had for his enemies. When he got "frosty", his rage was totally controlled, and it was contained at absolute zero. Now she knew what Lehr had meant by all of his responses to the jokes about revenge being a dish that was best served cold. It truly was a dish meant to be served in the cold depths of space, because they were kept at absolute zero.

'Relax, Kahm. We've got four weeks.'

'Three if they're in the first system, Krohn.'

'Never underestimate Murphy. We're having to split our forces, and we have no idea where they are heading or even if they ARE Borg.'

'That's right, Brynhe, try to make me feel better by telling me that I'm getting all worked up over nothing, because we don't even really know if it is something yet.'

Brynhe smiled. 'We all know that it's SOMETHING, Kahm. We just don't know WHAT it is. Yet.'

Krohn nodded. 'But we do know that if it's Borg, it IS a threat to humanity, so we do get to kill it.'

'And now we're right back to square one.'

'So? Work out and relieve the stress, Tahr Kahhni. There isn't a hell of a lot else for us to do for the next three weeks. You can't even make out any plans for what to do until you know what we're dealing with.'

Kahmmhi nodded, and they went to the training area. There were sure to be some Raiders or Assault Marines there training. Even on Rest Day, there was almost always SOMEBODY training in the Clan. The enemy never slept, and the Clan never lowered their guard. That was the key to their continued survival in the face of enemy forces that outnumbered them so dramatically.

Janeway couldn't believe how much antimatter they had collected in this one system by simply opening all four anomalies briefly. And she was very pleased to learn that the experimental drive for the probe had worked better than they could have ever possibly hoped. They had actually devised a drive system that didn't require vast amounts of energy or fuel, and which was capable of moving a ship through real space faster than full impulse was capable of doing. That achievement by itself was impressive as hell.

B'elana shook her head in disbelief. 'There has to be some kind of catch. I mean, we're talking about something that's the equivalent of creating a perpetual motion machine. It's just not possible. There has to be SOME kind of energy input from somewhere.'

Tuvok nodded. 'We theorize that the electromagnetic fields that are naturally occurring are somehow being used to provide all of the energy for the device. That it's simply moving along a flowing gradient of electromagnetic or gravitic energy between two objects.'

Seven nodded. 'That is, after all, exactly what gravity is, isn't it? The attractive force between two objects. Directly proportional to their mass, and inversely proportional to the relative distance between them.'

'Well, yeah, but...' B'elana sighed, realizing that arguing with a proposed theory was one thing, but trying to argue with the recorded data from a successful experiment, no matter how much it seemed to violate what you understood about the laws of physics, was quite another. 'OK. The thing works. What about the energy that's required for structural integrity of the probe?'

Tom smiled. 'That's the best part. We're drawing off of the magnetic field that runs the engines to provide the energy for both the inertial dampeners and the structural integrity field. And the best thing is that we are able to get about seventy percent efficiency from that, based on the theoretical yield for the system.'

Nobody said anything at all for a long moment. Seventy percent efficiency on a system was very good. For a new system that had just been developed to have yields that high was amazing. In fact, it was almost as unbelievable as the system itself.

'How much longer do you need for your experiments?'

'I'm not certain, captain. We've already done everything that we can in this system, or at least what we can do for now. We can always analyze the data that we've collected while we're moving to the next system.' Seven wasn't worried about remaining here, and wasn't concerned about not finding more anomalies in the next few systems. She already knew that the data analysis would require some time, and that it would require even more time to come up with a way to perform the next step in their research.

Paris cleared his throat. 'Captain, if we can spare the resources, I'd like to try to figure out a way to modify one of our shuttles so that we can replace the impulse engines in it with a gravitic engine.'

Janeway nodded. 'Draw up a list of what you'll need, and submit it to me for approval.'

Paris smiled. 'Do you think that you can find the time to help me make the modifications and rework the systems in the shuttle, B'elana?'

B'elana smiled playfully. 'Oh, just you try to stop me. I definitely want to have a hand in this experiment. And we're going to have to make sure that we reinforce the structural integrity of the shuttle enough to hold up to the stresses of that type of speed in real space, too.'

'Perhaps if we ran more power from the matter-antimatter reactor...'

B'elana nodded, and the two of them walked off, intently discussing the problem at hand. Chakotay watched them walking off and smiled. 'Ah, young love.'

Janeway nodded, pursing her lips in thought. 'If we don't find some way to shorten this journey...'

'I know. We'll need them and more like them to give us the next generation so that we aren't running through the galaxy shorthanded forever. And at our current rate of attrition, we'll need them to start producing the next generation sooner rather than later.'

Tuvok raised an eyebrow. 'Captain, might I remind you that with the recent acquisition of almost limitless power from our suddenly overflowing antimatter stocks, we can use the replicators to support many more personnel than we currently have. That would suggest that it would be feasible to actually consider actively trying to increase our current population, rather than just allowing nature to take its course and limiting our numbers.'

Janeway smiled, winking at Chakotay. 'I'll take your offer under advisement, Tuvok.'

'Offer? I was aware of no offer, captain. I do not understand.'

'Oh, I'm sorry. I must have misunderstood. With your lack of emotion, I thought that you were stating a logical case for procreation, and offering to contribute to our efforts to increase our population, Mr. Tuvok.'

Tuvok raised his eyebrow and shook his head. 'Your attempts at humor never cease to amaze me, captain.'

Chakotay and Janeway were both smiling as Tuvok left. Seven gave them a very curious look, then decided that she would rather leave with Tuvok before they started suggesting that she find a suitable male and contribute to their rather limited gene pool as well. She excused herself and left abruptly, her reaction causing both Janeway and Chakotay to burst into laughter after she left the room.

'I think she's worried that we might try to order all of the women to procreate.'

'We may eventually have to, Chakotay. None of us are getting any younger, and men do still outnumber the women in our crew. If we all actually decided to pair off and start families now that we could at least afford to feed and clothe them, we'd have to "adopt" a lot of females from other races and cultures just to make that possible. Unless, of course, the females are interested in having more than one man sharing her company. Seventy years is a very long time, and none of the females are going to be young enough to start families then.'

'You have been giving serious consideration to our problem of being shorthanded, haven't you?'

'Yes. It's much more serious than we want to think, Chakotay. And I'm not just talking about having a limited gene pool or having so few options that will work regarding our long term survival. We have so few people who are really qualified in any one area of ship operations. Sooner or later, there is going to be some kind of accident, some kind of disaster, or some kind of combat with lots of casualties, and we're going to lose people who have critical skills, and who really can't be easily replaced. That poses a threat to our entire mission, as well to our survival.'

Chakotay nodded, unable to argue with the logic. He had come to the same conclusion long ago, when they had been losing a lot of people, or at least a larger percentage of their total number, after they had first arrived in the Delta quadrant. He looked at her and sighed. 'I have the shift. Enjoy your time off, captain.'

'Keep alert, Chakotay.'

'Are you expecting trouble, captain?'

'I always expect trouble. Ever since we first got here and we found out exactly how dangerous a place the Delta quadrant was. But, to answer your question properly, not really. It's just that things are suddenly going very well for us, and whenever that happens...'

Chakotay nodded. 'There's always something around the corner waiting to hammer us back down. Right. I'll make sure that our long range scans are checked very carefully. Hopefully, if Seven's new system for long range detection works anywhere near as well as the new propulsion system does, we'll have much better warning of any potential danger approaching us. It would be nice to have some warning so we'd have time to work out potential responses before they were absolutely necessary to our survival. Maybe with some extra time, we could increase our options and avoid dangerous encounters more easily.'

Janeway nodded as she watched him leave, agreeing with Chakotay wholeheartedly. She got up and went to get something to drink. They could only hope.

The hive queen was disappointed when they finally came out of warp and found that the entire system was uninhabited. She ordered immediate scans of the system. When the results were finally given to her, she was very surprised to discover that there were four different points in the system where there were trace amounts of antimatter detectable. That corresponded to the number of wormhole events that had been detected while they were still in transit to this system. Now her main question was, what was going on? This had to be some new technology that the Borg had never even heard about before. There was a zero percent possibility that four wormholes had formed inside the same system naturally. This conclusion was only confirmed by the fact that none of the wormholes could now be detected at all. There was no way to pinpoint their exact locations, but nothing in the system was showing at all on their scans for neutrino emissions above background levels. And the probability that it was a single wormhole that had a weak attachment was even less likely. While there were some wormholes that had been documented that were unstable, that had one fixed attachment point while the other end moved around randomly, this didn't seem to be a wormhole of that type. It certainly wouldn't cycle that frequently, and definitely wouldn't lock onto the same system repeatedly if if lacked a permanent attachment point.

Further searches revealed nothing that would tell them who or what was responsible for the phenomena that they had detected, and the system was too far from their long range passive sensor arrays in this region of space for them to track any small vessels that might have been inside the system, even if they had gone to warp. Their own sensors were detecting nothing at either close or long range.

The hive queen contacted the Collective, gave them an update, and waited for more information to arrive. Eventually they would detect something, and then they would investigate. In the meantime, more Borg ships were coming to this system, having been redirected here by her update. If they arrived here before she detected another signal, they would accompany her to investigate the next anomaly, and then they would have enough forces to assimilate whatever they ran into.

'Captain, I'm detecting a vessel at extreme detection range on our long range sensors.'

'Can you identify it?'

Tuvok looked up at Janeway. 'It appears to be Borg.'

'I guess that Seven's new system isn't working as well as we'd hoped.'

'That's not necessarily a valid assumption, captain. The vessel that we are currently detecting came out of warp, not transwarp. It is in the system that we just left two days ago.'

Janeway immediately looked concerned. 'I don't believe in coincidences, Mr. Tuvok. Especially where the Borg are concerned. Do you think that they're trying to follow or track us?'

'That is a distinct possibility, captain. The Borg have been devoting an inordinate amount of energy into either destroying or assimilating this vessel. However, I cannot be certain of that conclusion without further data.'

'Can they detect us?'

'They are barely at the edge of my own detection limits, captain. I do not think their own sensors are capable of detecting us at this distance. Certainly not at this range while our cloaking device is fully operational.'

'Very well. Continue monitoring them, and pay close attention to our long range scans. I want to know if they're coming after us or closing on our position.'

Tuvok nodded and returned to his duties, leaving Janeway with another headache to worry about. The last thing that they needed right now was another encounter with the Borg. She could only hope that they weren't heading the same direction that Voyager was, and that they weren't tracking Voyager in another attempt to assimilate her ship and add it to their Collective.

There were no more anomalies in the next two systems that they stopped at, so Janeway didn't stay there long enough for Paris and Seven to do any more experiments with their new drive system. They were both hard at work modifying a shuttle, and didn't really care about the delay. They were more interested in getting the new shuttle done and using it in further experiments than they were in doing more preliminary experiments to gather data. By the time they finally reached the third system, it had been about ten days since they had left the system that the Borg ship had entered after they left.

There were three anomalies in this system, so Paris convinced Janeway to let him try out his new shuttle to see how well it worked. Janeway finally agreed to the test, so long as the shuttle was piloted by remote control. She wanted them to prove that their modifications were safe before she risked any of her crew in it. Paris readily agreed, and they set up the instrumentation to record all of the data that they would acquire during the test flight.

Janeway was anxious as she watched the shuttle move across the system. The readings were normal inside the shuttle, and the new systems seemed to be working perfectly. The shuttle was moving at full impulse, and the inertial compensators were functioning well in the green, showing no signs of stress or failure.

'All systems are normal, captain. The shuttle is moving at almost one point five times full impulse. Seven assures me that we could reach one point five safely, but that it would stress the system after a while. This is the maximum safe cruising speed that our simulations predicted.'

Janeway nodded. 'Amazing. That much speed, and it's drawing no real power for the actual propulsion system itself. In fact, the propulsion system is generating enough power to provide most of the power that the inertial dampeners are using to maintain the structural integrity of the shuttle, as well as the structural integrity fields and the energy shields.'

Chakotay nodded. 'It's an amazing achievement, captain. And with the almost limitless supply of antimatter that we've suddenly acquired as well, we should have no real problems supplying enough power for all of our needs on our long journey home.'

'Yes. It's really too bad that we can't figure out a way to speed the ship up even more. Could we use this new propulsion system on Voyager?'

'B'elana tells me that we could put in the engine itself, but we would need several of them to power a ship the size of Voyager. And we'd need to enhance the structural integrity fields to handle the additional stresses. It would take a lot of time and resources, and all it would do would be to allow us to move more rapidly when we're outside of warp.'

'We can't afford to do that right now. But it is nice to know that we do have that option if anything ever happens to our impulse engines or if we're unable to gather fuel for them for some reason.'

'Voyager, this is Paris.'

'Go ahead, Tom. Congratulations. It seems as if your experiment really works.'

'Thank you, sir. We were wondering if it was OK for us to try to take the shuttle through one of those anomalies and check to make sure that the shields gave it protection inside the anomalies.'

Janeway looked at Chakotay, then over at Tuvok. Both of them seemed to be genuinely surprised by the request, but Tuvok nodded his head. 'It would be better to send an unmanned probe at first, and it would safely eliminate the question of whether or not we could actually send a shuttle through the anomaly safely.'

'At the risk of one of our shuttles.'

Tuvok shrugged, conceding the point. 'There is that risk, captain. But the shielding on the shuttle is several times stronger than that of the probe that they were using before, and the shuttle is performing exactly according to the predictions that our simulations provided.'

Janeway nodded. 'Very well, Mr. Paris. Just be careful, and try not to lose your new ship.'

Paris's chuckle could be heard over the com. 'I'm definitely not going to risk losing it before I even have a chance to fly it and explore hyperspace for myself, captain.'

Janeway heard Chakotay laughing softly in the background, but chose to ignore it. She watched her monitors anxiously as the shuttle moved toward the nearest anomaly. There was a huge lightshow, and the shuttle vanished from their sensors.

'We do not have the shuttle on our sensors. The energy release must block our sensors at this range.'

Janeway nodded. 'Do you still have visual and remote control, Mr. Paris?'

'Yes, captain. Why? Is there a problem?'

'The emissions from the anomaly seem to be interfering with the ability of our sensors to detect the shuttle.'

'Oh. We still have visual, and it's totally under control. I've stopped the shuttle about two kilometers inside the anomaly, and am running scans right now to determine what our sensors can pick up from inside the anomaly itself.'

'Very good thinking, Mr. Paris. I'll let you concentrate on your mission, and we'll go over the data after you return.'

'Aye, captain.'

Tom looked over at Seven. 'Well, we're getting a lot of data. Can you make anything of it right now?'

'I've tied the sensors from the other shuttle into our own shuttle, so we can read everything that's happening to the other shuttle as if we were experiencing it ourselves.'

'That's great.' Tom looked at the displays, concentrating on the long range sensors. 'I can't seem to find an end to this corridor or whatever it is.'

'It extends beyond the range of our sensors.'

'Whoa! Have you checked out the composition of the walls of this tunnel?'

'They are comprised of pure antimatter. That explains why antimatter is released when a portal is opened at the anomalies.'

Paris grinned. 'That means that if we take a shuttle inside one of these portals, we could harvest vast amounts of antimatter without any problems or risk at all, since we could just beam it through our shields and put it directly into containment vessels.'

Seven nodded, but her attention was still focused on the readings that she was getting from their probe. 'There appears to be some slight fluctuation in the intensity of the gravitic field inside the anomaly. I never noticed that before.'

'The sensors on the shuttle are much more sensitive and comprehensive than the small sensor package that we could include on our probe.'

Seven nodded. 'That is true. I'll have to study this further after we return to Voyager. There seems to be some sort of pattern or frequency involved in the fluctuations.'

Paris nodded, watching as she recorded everything on their own ship, just in case. When she finally gave him the signal, he brought the shuttle out of the anomaly and the wormhole closed behind it. When he was sure that the shuttle was safe and that it wouldn't be coming into contact with any antimatter, they spent a while collecting all of the stray antimatter that they could, filling several more containment vessels in the process. When they completed that task, Tom began the process of returning both shuttles to Voyager.

The hive queen was startled by the unexpected emergency signal. There. They had detected another anomaly. It was several systems away, and it would require almost a week to travel there at high warp. A quick query showed that the rest of the Borg ships in the system had already received the alert as well. She gave one mental command, and all four Borg ships began preparing to move toward their new target system at high speed. They would move at the maximum possible speed because she was taking no chances that this target would get away. They must assimilate it before it could become a true threat to the entire Collective.

'Whoa! I've got an alert on our sensors.'

'What is it?'

'I'm not sure, Ginny. It looks like someone actually opened the other end of this hyper stream for a few minutes.'

'Incoming?' Whoever had just learned how to use hyper in this galaxy, Virginia didn't want to make her first contact with them inside a freaking hyper stream. That would severely limit the advantages that the Clan had over all of the technology that the civilizations in this galaxy seemed to possess.

'I'm not detecting anything.'

Virginia breathed out a sigh of relief. 'How long until we reach the next system?'

'If we don't speed up and pump any additional energy to go faster than the stream flows naturally, we'll be there in about a day and a half.'

'Just get us there, Laura. We'll deal with what's on the other end of the hyper stream when we get there. We can just hope that the Borg aren't actually learning how to travel through hyper. If they are, they'll hammer the piss out of everything in the entire Alpha quadrant before they even know what hit them.'

'You can't be serious. After the upgrades and the ships that we gave them?'

'Their lasers will only do so much damage, and they're only putting so much armor on their new ships right now because of constraints on their resources. The do have a limited number of synthesizers to produce that armor, you know.'

'Yeah.'

'And the Federation already had all kinds of problems with the Borg when they were fighting against one Borg assimilation cube. They talked about Wolf 359 as if it were some sort of huge fleet battle, but they only faced one Borg cube, and it destroyed a lot of their ships. It almost managed to destroy or take over Earth itself, despite the best efforts of the entire Federation fleet.'

'Well, then I guess our only options are to hope that whoever is starting to develop the ability to explore and use hyper is a different species, or that the Borg aren't able to develop that capability and capitalize on their scientific achievement before the Federation and the other humans are able to develop adequate defenses against them.'

Both of them turned at the sound of lilting, melodic laughter. 'Oh, Laura, you really do say the funniest things sometimes. The humans back there aren't aggressive enough to go on the offensive against the Dominion, and the Jem'Haddar were so aggressive that we screwed them over by weaning them off of the tetracel white so that they lost their edge in combat. If the Borg have the ability to assimilate all of the Alpha quadrant, they will. At the very first real opportunity that they get.'

'So, if this IS the Borg developing a way to use hyper, what are we going to do?'

Kahmmhi smiled ferally. 'We're going to stop them dead in their tracks, and do our very best to convince them that hyper is the home territory of the Death Wraiths. A place that is so dark, so dangerous that they don't ever want to risk going there. We can make them think that we live in hyperspace.'

Laura shuddered. 'When you talk like that, Kahm, you remind me WAY too much of your grandfather.'

Kahmmhi shrugged, smiling innocently. 'I may not be a good little ground pounder who can go swimming in blood and guts and want to do it again right away, but I'm still a damned sight more aggressive than any of those so-called warriors that the Alpha quadrant produces. Though I do have to admit that if they were a lot stronger and a bit smarter, capable of following directions without losing control to their blood lust, the Klingons would make decent Assault Marines.'

Virginia smiled, realizing that Kahmmhi was being overly generous in her assessment. The Klingons would have to be at least twice as strong as they currently were to be as strong as Betas, and so far, the Clan hadn't really considered anything that was weaker than a Delta suitable for the tactics that Assault Marines used. Betas COULD use those tactics, but they weren't as effective because the Betas simply couldn't use armor strong enough to give them proper protection. It was just too heavy for them to use.

Krohn chuckled. 'They actually made genetically engineered humans and trained them for combat. They are intelligent, and they control their blood lust much better than the average Klingon does. They're not quite as strong as a Beta, but they are strong.'

Kahmmhi looked at him. 'Really? How come we didn't meet any of them?'

'They feared their own creations, and began disposing of them. Some of the most violent and aggressive ones were killed. Most of the rest were either left on isolated rocks with low tech or put into stasis so that they couldn't escape and take over the Federation.'

'That's kraghlar stupid. Why would they want to waste perfectly good genetics like that?'

Brynhe chuckled. 'Kahm, we ARE talking about the Federation, remember? They're afraid of aggression and they don't really know what warfare is all about. I seriously wonder if they can actually handle real warfare. They don't appear to be all that stable or well developed emotionally when it comes to combat and aggression. But I still haven't figured out whether their problem is caused by their civilization and the ideals that they've been brought up to follow, or if it's actually genetic. I'm seriously leaning toward them being too well conditioned socially to overcome their education and revert to their natural instincts when things occur that require them to use everything that they have to survive.'

Virginia nodded, agreeing with Brynhe. From what she'd seen, the humans had the genetic potential to survive in combat, and they could fight fairly well as individuals, or at least some of them could. They simply lacked the social influences and organization to allow them to actually use their full potential in combat.

'Kahm, if we start taking on the Borg...'

'Yeah. Contact the other two ships and warn them that we may start mixing things up with the Borg if we run across them. If they meet any Borg, they're to take them out immediately if they see the Borg show any hostile intentions at all.' Kahmmhi sneered. 'The Borg are nothing but mindless machines running on a broken record. "Resistance is futile" my ass. "Prepare to be assimilated" my ass. I've seen the vids that the Federation has, and I'm DEFINITELY not impressed.'

Krohn smiled. 'Now you truly sound like your grandfather, Kahmmhi.'

'I wish. Grandpa would have already figured out how to find the Borg, and by now we wouldn't be standing around talking about them. We'd already be kicking Borg butt clear back to the next galaxy.'

Krohn laughed. 'Kohl-garh would definitely take the war to them, and he would show them that they had much to learn in the ways of war. But even he has his limitations, Kahmmhi. Never forget that. I know for a fact that Kohl-garh doesn't ever forget that fact.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'You're right. I know all to well exactly how human and caring he can be. But I also know all too well exactly how ruthless, merciless, and destructive he can be to his enemies. If that is what it takes to get us back to our Clan, then I am willing to make that sacrifice as well.' Kahmmhi smiled very grimly. 'Obligations must be fulfilled, and it is the duty of the leader to make sure that they are.'

Krohn and the others nodded silently. She hadn't used the word "giri", but Kahmmhi was skating dangerously close to that small hurdle. Once she crossed it, Krohn knew that her entire Clan would be very surprised by the change in sweet, innocent, dutiful little Kahmmhi. She would become the warrior that her grandfather had seen. The warrior that they had all been sent here to nurture, protect, and eventually, follow into combat. On that day, they would truly begin to fulfill their Kahrr Soorh to Kohl-garh.

Krohn looked at the others and smiled. He spoke a few words to them, and the others just smiled and nodded. Virginia looked over at them, but Kahmmhi ignored their comment. Virginia pulled up the translator, wondering what Krohn had said, and was surprised to discover that the language was not translatable. All that her software could tell her was that it wasn't spoken by anyone in Clan Silver Dragon and the translators couldn't handle the language. It was known to be a command language that was used by certain highly trained groups inside Clan Phoenix, but that was all that she could find out.

'Krohn, may I ask you something?'

Krohn went over to Virginia. 'Yes, captain?'

'What was it that you just said to the other Shadows?'

Krohn smiled cryptically. 'Nothing of importance. At least, not yet. Soon, perhaps, but not yet.'

'Why are you being so cryptic?'

'We may soon see something come to pass. Something that Kohl-garh specifically warned us about when we first volunteered to become Kahrr Soorhni. If it does happen, it will be a very bad thing for all enemies of the Clan. If not, then we will wait for the time and the conditions to be right.'

'Time and conditions to be right for what?'

Krohn smiled. 'We were told not to discuss that with anyone.'

'And the command language that you used?'

'Is known only by a very few of us who live in this Clan, and can not, as you are already aware, be translated by the comps and translator devices that we have. Even those that were built and modified by the Clan can't handle the language.'

'Do you even know what language it is?'

'Only that it comes from old Earth, and that it was spoken and never written. That, even there, it is a dead language. All of those who spoke it died long before Kohl-garh ever left his home planet. They were wiped out in a war. Kohl-garh misses them, for they were among the very first to fight alongside him in combat, and so many of them became Lights Upon the Path before they were simply wiped out by their enemies.'

Virginia nodded, and Krohn returned to where Kahmmhi was going over the data that they had just acquired concerning the unusual opening of the hyper stream at their destination. She had no intentions of getting into a discussion with Krohn on any of the topics that her questions had led to. If she had to know, he would tell her when the time was right, or when her knowing what was going on was required for her to do her duty properly. For now, she had to command the group of seven Clan ships that was heading into a potentially hostile and dangerous situation. Which, for those in the Clan, was life as normal. If they were lucky, they were going to see combat very soon.

Virginia contacted Kahmmhi over the comm. 'We're going to be coming out of hyper in an hour, Kahm.'

'I'm already on my way to the bridge. We took a detour, so we should be there in about twenty minutes. We'll definitely be there before we reach the end of this hyper stream.'

'Roger that. See you in a few.'

Virginia busied herself with running things and going over their contingency plans in case there were any Borg ships in the system when they reached it. She was just finishing up her contacts with the other six ships that were with her when Kahmmhi and her Shadows entered the bridge. She smiled as she saw that they were all in full combat armor. Old habits died hard. And those who didn't follow standard Clan rules and obey those habits just died. And when you were a Clan Alpha and there was no way to die peacefully in your sleep or just die of old age, the only ways that there were to die were all violent, hard, and generally abrupt.

'Glad to see that you could make it. Forty minutes, give or take.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Getting anxious on me and trying to pump a little power in to increase our speed?'

'No. Someone on the other end has been doing some sort of probing at the hyper point, and the speed of the stream is increasing slightly because they're destabilizing the opening.'

Kahmmhi nodded, realizing that everyone knew that the speed of ships traveling through a hyper stream did increase somewhat near the termini if the hyper point was open to real space. 'OK. We don't have to take any precautions to keep from running them over, do we?'

'We shouldn't, but I'd like to launch some recon shuttles, just to be sure.'

'Go for it. Stick to a claw, though. I don't want a lot of small ships out in the system before we get there if there are Borg in the system. The less warning they get, the better I'll like it.'

Kayhlya smiled as her claw came out of hyper, then banked hard to avoid the small craft that was operating near the opening of the hyper stream.

'Kraghlar hell! Break! Starburst out, now people. Gina, get back inside and tell them to hold position while we figure out who the hell this is. If they bring the PUFF out of hyper, that ship is going to be scattered across half the freaking system before they even know that they were hit, let alone what actually hit them.'

'Roger, Talon leader.'

'Kayhlya, I've got a bogey on scans. Small craft. Very weak stealth systems operational around it.'

'Stealth?'

'Reading is close to whatever it was that they were using at DS9, but not exactly the same. Looks like someone took the same systems and tweaked them to increase performance, but not the same way that the Federation and their allies did.'

'Get me some close scans. Skip if you have to, but do it ASAP.'

'Roger. You heard the lady, boys and girls. Let's see what we've got to play with inside this system.'

Kayhlya turned and went closer to the small shuttle to scan it as closely as possible. When she got the results, she was surprised to discover that it was a Federation shuttlecraft. The drive system was much different than anything that they had ever seen before, but the design and markings were clearly those of the Federation, and it was made of the same materials that the Federation used in their construction.

'Kragh me. They can't have possibly made those types of modifications from the things that we gave them and already be out here exploring. We're halfway across the Delta quadrant from DS9. What the hell is going on here?'

'Kayhlya, we've got your scans, and you're not going to believe this. The ship is a Federation vessel. Our records show that it's one that was lost at least ten years ago, and was presumed destroyed.'

'Then what the kragh is it doing here?'

'No clue. It was lost in the Alpha quadrant. Operating in an area that some radical fringe group was operating in. They couldn't possibly have come this far into the Delta quadrant in that amount of time. They don't have the tech to get here. Not even at their highest sustainable warp speeds.'

'Let's send the report back to Virginia and Kahmmhi, and wait for them to respond. If they want us to maintain our distance and keep quiet, we'll just have to wait until that shuttle moves before they can enter the system.'

'Roger that.'

Kahmmhi looked at the scans and frowned. 'I don't freaking believe this. That's a Voyager class ship. Definitely Federation. But it's using their cloaking devices. Slightly different design, and more effective than any of those that we saw them using or developing in the Alpha quadrant before we left, but it's definitely based on the same tech. What the kragh is a Federation ship doing here?'

'There is no way that that particular ship could possibly exist here, Kahm. They don't have the tech to have made it here, and trying to use hyper would have destroyed it totally.'

'I know. Kragh. Has the shuttle moved at all?'

'Not yet.'

'Have them hold position. We're not going to let them know that we're here until after we enter the system and are already in position.'

'Aye, sir.'

'I have detected some type of minor disturbance in the anomaly.'

Paris looked over at Seven. She sounded confused, possibly worried. 'What type of disturbance?'

'I'm not certain. It's almost as if the anomaly has opened and closed several times, but there has been no sign of that on our sensors. We certainly would have seen an event such as it opening, and I'm not detecting any neutrino emissions over background levels.'

Paris nodded. As close as they were to the anomaly, that lightshow would have blinded their sensors to almost everything else in the system, and nothing could open a wormhole and come through it without releasing vast numbers of neutrinos. 'Can you describe it at all?'

'Minor fluctuations in the field intensity.'

'What would cause that?'

'Other than an opening of the anomaly, I have no idea.'

'Should we contact Voyager and see what the captain thinks?'

'I would rather return to the ship and analyze our readings there. Tuvok and B'elana would be very helpful in that type of analysis, and the ship's computers can do a much better analysis of our data than we can here.'

Paris nodded, and turned the ship toward the position that he knew Voyager was maintaining. They would drop the cloak long enough for him to dock, though they could just tractor the shuttle into the bay without dropping the cloak, it didn't make any more sense to do things that way. The shuttle wasn't cloaked, so it could be detected just as easily as Voyager could without its cloaking field.

''Ginny, we just got the all clear.'

'Move us through the hyper point and get us into that system right now.'

Kahm sighed with relief. Evidently the shuttle had finally moved away from the hyper point. As they entered the system, they got an immediate update from the recon shuttles that were in the system.

'Nothing here but us and them. No sign of Borg ships, and no transwarp activity detected in the region.'

'Good. Anything else?'

'The shuttle that was near the hyper point is using a gravitic drive. Signature strength indicates that it should be equivalent to that of the Consortium several millennia ago, but we know the Federation doesn't really have any inertial compensators like we use. They use some sort of inertial dampeners and structural integrity fields. The fields are pretty strong for a craft that size. About two or three times stronger than any that we saw on their shuttles when we were at DS9. They could probably outrun a Consortium large heavy fighter.'

Kahmmhi nodded. Gravitic drives, better integrity fields, primitive stealth technology, and they were starting to investigate hyper on their own. Whoever this was, they weren't working under the same constraints as the rest of the Federation seemed to be. 'Let's contact the commander of that ship and freak them out. If they're who they're supposed to be, we'll deal with them.'

'Contacting them now, Tahr Kahhni.'

Janeway looked up in shock as the communications officer spoke up. 'Sir, we're being hailed.'

'By who? There's nobody in this system except us, and our cloaking device should keep anyone from detecting us.'

'I'm not sure who it is, and I'm not even sure exactly where they are, but they're contacting us directly and they're calling for this ship by name, sir.'

Janeway nodded, then answered the signal. She was surprised when she saw a small female who looked almost Vulcan appear on her screen. 'This is Captain Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager. Who are you?'

'I am Kahmmhi, leader of this small force from Clan Silver Dragon. We are very surprised to see a Federation starship in this region of space. We haven't seen any of your ships since we entered the Delta quadrant years ago.'

'Where are you?'

'In the same system as your ship is, captain.'

'We can't detect any ships in this system.'

'I'm aware of that. We have dealt with your Federation and their allies before.'

'Allies?'

'The Romulans and the Klingons.'

Janeway looked around the bridge, and everyone looked just as startled by what they'd just heard as she was. 'We have treaties with both of those races, but I wouldn't exactly call them allies.'

'The Dominion gave them no choice but to cooperate more fully with the Federation if they wished to survive. The Dominion formed an alliance with the Cardassians and the Breen to take over the Alpha quadrant. We were in the area during their invasion attempt, and helped out as best we could.'

Janeway looked concerned. 'The Federation is at war with the Dominion, the Cardassians, and the Breen?'

'The war is over, for all intents and purposes. The Cardassians and Breen surrendered. All Dominion forces in the Alpha quadrant were destroyed or captured. The home world of the Founders was found and destroyed, so the Dominion has been severely weakened, and isn't really looking to invade the Alpha quadrant any time soon.'

Chakotay leaned close to her. 'This could all be some sort of ruse, Captain.'

'We have our records of our time with the Federation, if you need to see something to convince you that we're telling the truth. I can send you some of our meetings with some of your leaders. Commander Sisko, of DS9. Admiral Picard. Admiral Yamato. Gowron. Admiral Korg. Even some of the Romulan commanders who were present, as well as Vulcans.'

Chakotay blinked in surprise. Evidently they had heard his whispered comment over the open comm, or they were dealing with telepaths. Either possibility was disturbing.

'How is Sisko doing?'

'Much better now that they aren't trying to destroy or take his station away from him. Do I need to go down a list of his officers and other station personnel to convince you that we're who we say we are?'

'No, that won't be necessary.'

'If you'd like to meet face to face, I can come aboard your ship. Our shuttle can dock at one of your docking ports, and I could come in with my bodyguards to speak to you face to face. Though I could give you a transmission of some data before we meet to let you ease your fears that this is some sort of trap.'

'If you could answer a few questions, it would help.'

'If I can, I will answer what I can.'

'How did you find us?'

'We detected something moving through subspace at high speed, and figured that it was movement through a transwarp conduit. Since we've been looking for the Borg, we determined where the systems that we could reach were located in real space, and picked the systems that were along the projected path of the Borg line of travel. When we came out here, the first system that we could reach, we found you, and not Borg.'

'You were looking for the Borg?' Chakotay looked stunned. Nobody LOOKED for the Borg. Janeway was still trying to process the fact that they had the capability to detect transwarp signatures while the Borg were still in subspace, or at least that they claimed to have that capability.

'Looking for them might not be the best choice of words. We were hunting them.'

'Why would you be hunting Borg?'

'They are a threat to humanity, so we were going to see how much damage we could do to them while we were in the area.'

Chakotay shook his head. 'That is totally insane.'

Janeway nodded, agreeing with his assessment. 'And this is the first system along their line of travel that you could reach?'

'Yes. If they were moving constantly, they should have already passed through this system, or they could have. We're not certain of their exact speed, since some of our scouts detected their transit while we were still several systems away from their passage site.' Kahmmhi smiled. 'Forgive me for asking, but how did YOU get into this area of the galaxy?'

'That is a very long, complicated story. We were brought here by aliens with highly advanced technology, but we managed to escape before we were all killed. We've been trying to make our way back to the Alpha quadrant for a number of years now. At our present rate of travel, it will take many more decades for us to reach the Alpha quadrant.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'That is one of the things that we should meet to discuss, captain. We may be able to help you achieve your goal, depending on how things work out and what we have to work with.'

'How long would it take you to reach our ship?'

'We can be there in half an hour, if that's not too soon. We'll dock at the docking port, and wait for you to meet with us at your convenience.'

'I'll meet you at our starboard docking port in half an hour, then.'

The screen went blank, and Janeway looked at Chakotay. 'I know, it's a risk. Have security send a full team there to support us, and put the ship on yellow alert. If this is the prelude to an attack, we will at least be ready for them.'

Chakotay smiled. 'You're not worried that you'll scare them off?'

'Not if any of what they've told us has been happening in the Alpha quadrant is true. We're short on crew as it is, but they don't know that.'

Chakotay nodded, but didn't correct the captain. Even if they hadn't suffered any casualties at all during their first encounter with the residents of the Delta quadrant, nobody would assume that Voyager could operate for more than ten years in potentially hostile territory, totally on their own with no support, no regular resupply, no periodic personnel changes whatsoever, and still have a full crew complement.

Kahmmhi smiled as she turned to her Shadows. 'Time to go talk to the nice people. It looks like they're really far from home, so they'll be very cautious.'

Krohn nodded. 'We know that they'll have a lot of troops ready for trouble. That won't be a problem. We can leave our heavy weapons in the shuttle with Max and his platoon, just as we did at DS9.' He grinned. 'We have no fear that Max and his platoon can provide enough immediate backup for us to get you off of the ship safely if anything goes wrong. The full crew complement for a Voyager class ship isn't all that large to begin with.'

Brynhe smiled. 'We're just docking with them, and if we keep the ship stealthed, they won't even know how large our ship is in comparison to theirs. We can take a HAT, and Max will be happy about that.'

Kahmmhi shrugged, allowing them to talk without interjecting any comments of her own. She knew that there was no way in hell that Virginia was allowing her off of the ship without Max and his platoon being right there, just in case of trouble. And what the Federation people didn't know wouldn't hurt them. They had been very surprised to find out that the Clan ships were in the same system, and even more surprised to discover that they could detect their ship while it was fully cloaked.

When they got to the shuttle bay, she smiled as she saw Max and his wife standing beside the HAT, patiently waiting for them. 'Hey, Fleur. You did remember to bring some LIGHT loads for your baby, didn't you?'

'Yes, Tahr Kahhni. I remember how light the armor and materials are on their ships, and I'm not going to be punching any holes in them while you're in there without full body armor.'

'I'm sure that they'll appreciate your consideration.'

They entered the shuttle laughing, knowing that it was extremely unlikely that they would encounter any real trouble from the Federation personnel on Voyager. They were a long way from home, had little or no hope of gaining allies or assistance as they traveled through the Delta quadrant, and couldn't afford to make enemies of anyone that they encountered without a really good reason. Of course, Kahmmhi hadn't ever seen that much to indicate that the people who were in StarFleet were more than security forces for the Federation and explorers who were interested in meeting and making peaceful contact with other species that they discovered. While they often violated their prime directive, those who did so were actually held accountable for their actions, though enforcement varied widely in the extreme, depending on the circumstances and reasoning of the officer who violated the directive. Generally, they made contact with other cultures based on their own understanding of the level of technology that the culture possessed, and did what they could to limit trade, especially of technology, that would have potential adverse effects on the culture. Kahmmhi couldn't help smiling as she remembered exactly how the Federation and their allies had responded when she had told them that they wouldn't be given some of the things that they desperately wanted the Clan to give them simply because the Clan didn't want to violate their prime directive and adversely influence their own natural technological development.

'What's so funny, Kahm? I know that smile.'

'Just remembering how the Federation and their allies reacted when they found out that we were going to use their own Prime Directive against them because they were the less technologically advanced culture and we didn't want to destroy their normal development.'

Max grinned. 'Yeah, that really pissed off the Klingons when they realized that we normally didn't hesitate to give lots of things to potential allies when they needed it. But then the Klingons and the Romulans both realized that we didn't have our entire Clan here, this wasn't the normal situation that we were used to dealing with, and we didn't have the resources to help their entire cultures in the time that we had.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'We did what we could, and avoided giving them things that they couldn't possibly have used properly or safely. Yes, we might have given them a few more things than we did, especially some of the information that they wanted about how our technology worked, specifically the data on gravitics and hyper travel, but they weren't really ready for that, and it would have destroyed their cultures. They're already having to endure massive changes in their respective cultures as they learn how to work together, trust each other, and work out their alliance in order to gear up for the much more militant stance that their continued survival against all of the threats to them requires.'

Max chuckled. 'They were naive children with high ideals and no grasp of the reality of how the universe actually works. They had already encountered the Borg, and hadn't even really changed their mindset on how to gear up for real warfare. Yeah, they had rebuilt their lost ships, improved their fleet, and upgraded their weapons, but their basic mindset and culture was unchanged. They still weren't expending realistic amounts of their resources to developing and building even better fleets, to increasing their overall resource allocation for defense, or even making any real contingency plans for encountering other threats. They couldn't possibly have believed that the Borg, the Dominion, and the rest of the threats that they knew of from the Delta quadrant were going to just sit back and wait forever before trying to assimilate their asses, and they still have no real idea about exactly how dangerous the Gamma quadrant could become within the next few centuries.'

'That could realistically take another millennia, possibly two.'

Max snorted. 'At most. Assuming, of course, that the cultures in the Gamma quadrant don't end up forming something similar to the Consortium, developing their own tech even faster than the cultures in the Alpha quadrant, or have one of their cultures end up fleeing into the Alpha quadrant in order to survive, leading the others there in search of their prey.' Max shook his head sadly. 'We all know that warfare, and the need to survive against a known threat, stimulates research and development of weapons and scientifically related fields much faster than peaceful exploration does. Not only in our own culture, but in almost all of the other cultures that we've ever encountered.'

Kahmmhi nodded. She wasn't about to argue with him when the facts supported him completely. They'd find out soon enough how this captain and her crew were handling the fact that their survival was almost entirely up to their own efforts. So far, she was impressed with their ingenuity and skills. They had developed a way to open a hyper portal on their own, and were working on the initial stages of learning how to travel in hyper and use gravitic drives. And they had developed better cloaking technology than even the Klingons had available before the Clan had arrived. If the entire Federation was working this effectively at improving their ships, the Alpha quadrant wouldn't be in nearly so much danger from the threats that the Clan had detected in the Gamma quadrant and the Delta quadrant during their explorations.

'We've been cleared for final docking. They haven't bothered asking us to drop stealth.'

Kahmmhi nodded, realizing that Voyager was just as concerned about being detected by possibly enemies as the Clan ships were, so remaining stealthed kept them both from being detected. 'OK. Let me know when we're linked and the hatch is secure. We won't be able to put anyone inside their ship without freaking them out.'

Max glared at her. 'I really don't like that.'

Kahmmhi smiled sweetly. 'Then you'll love knowing that you and your platoon are to keep out of sight and remain on board the HAT unless we call you or we run into trouble.'

'About as much as I know that if we do go on board, we're limited to blades and fists. Their ships just won't hold up to much more than that, and unless you order us aboard to trash the place, we don't want to cause any more serious injuries or deaths than we absolutely have to.'

Kahmmhi nodded, then turned as Krohn tapped her shoulder. 'We're there, Tahr Kahhni.'

Kahmmhi and her Shadows went over to the hatch that was open. They could clearly see through the stealth field, and saw several people in StarFleet uniforms standing down a small hallway, waiting for them. They could also see several StarFleet security personnel in the area, clearly armed and ready for action.

'Sorry, but two of us go first.'

Kahmmhi nodded, then watched as two of her Shadows went through the hatch.

Janeway and Chakotay were watching nervously, wanting anxiously for Kahmmhi to appear from the shuttle. She had been in contact with the bridge, and their sensors still couldn't detect anything at all next to their hull, but the hatch had been sealed and opened, and even though she couldn't see anything at all beyond the hatch, there was obviously something there or the open hatch would have been opened to the vacuum of space. The safeguards wouldn't allow that, and yet, the hatch was clearly open.

They stiffened slightly as two armed figures in black armor appeared, but they moved slowly and didn't make any hostile or aggressive motions. After a few seconds, a small, slender woman in silks came out of the hatch, followed by two other figures in armor. All four of the figures had on the same armor, and there was some type of crest on the chest of the armor, but it was difficult to make out because it was black on black.

Janeway smiled as the diminutive woman approached her. 'Welcome aboard, Kahmmhi. I'm Captain Katherine Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'I'm Kahmmhi, leader of this group. We're from Clan Silver Dragon.'

'I'm sorry, but I've never heard of Clan Silver Dragon, and we know nothing of your culture. Perhaps we could continue this meeting and share more information under more relaxing conditions?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'I'm afraid that my Shadows won't leave me alone with anyone, Captain.'

'I understand your need for security, but I assure you that you are in no danger while you are on board my ship. We certainly mean you no harm.'

'That isn't the problem, Captain Janeway. In our culture, the leader of a Clan is never allowed to go anywhere without his Shadows. They are permanent bodyguards. We're cut off from our Clan, and as the leader of this branch, I am required to have my Shadows with me all of the time. I'm not even able to get away from them on board my own ship. My grandfather assigned them to me while I was still a small child, and they've been with me ever since.'

Janeway nodded. 'Very well, but you won't mind if I keep some of my own security forces on hand as well, just to satisfy my executive officer that we aren't in danger of you trying to kidnap me, are you?'

Kahmmhi smiled and laughed. It was light, lilting, musical laughter, which didn't surprise Janeway at all. 'Oh, we have no problem with that at all. We were very well aware of the presence of security forces during the entire time that we were at DS9. We completely understand the precautions. One thing that the Clans always encourage everyone to take very seriously is their own security.'

Janeway led them to a nice room, and Kahmmhi found a seat while her Shadows and the Federation security forces remained near the walls of the room. 'I hope that you don't mind, but we've called a staff meeting to allow you to present your data to as much of my staff as possible. Allow me to introduce Chakotay, my executive officer, Mr. Tuvok, my science officer, Seven of Nine, one of our best scientists, and B'elana Torres, our chief engineer.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'A Vulcan and a Klingon.' She smiled. 'That definitely reminds me of our time at DS9. I'm afraid that I don't recognize the species for Seven. She's definitely humanoid, but I've never seen implants of that type before.'

'They are Borg cybernetic implants.' Seven responded calmly and evenly, showing no emotion at all.

Kahmmhi stiffened up, and immediately shouted, 'Kraal-cha!' Everyone in the room was shocked to realize that even as fast as her response had been, two of her Shadows were already more than halfway across the room before any of the Federation security officers could even begin to move. They had their swords out already, and the other two Shadows had their sidearms leveled at the Federation security personnel in the room, just in case.

'What is the meaning of this?' Janeway wasn't feeling as fearless or in control as she attempted to sound, but she wasn't going to allow them to simply take over her ship uncontested.

'I'm sorry. As I told you when I first contacted you, we have been hunting for the Borg, and we intend to destroy them because they are a threat to humanity.' She turned. 'Krohn, Brynhe, put your swords away and stand down. And have the others put up their sidearms.'

Seven looked at Janeway. 'They move very fast, captain. Much faster than humans possibly could. Even Borg combat drones aren't that fast.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'We're not human. We're Clan.'

Janeway nodded. 'Seven is a member of my crew. She was human, and a member of the Federation. She was captured by the Borg and converted into a drone when she was young. But she is no longer a member of the Borg Collective. In fact, she is a very valuable member of my crew, and she has been invaluable in our own struggles against the Borg in the past.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Forgive their reactions, captain. My apologies, Seven. My bodyguards take their duties very seriously, and all enemies of the Clan die.'

Janeway looked at her. 'I'm not sure how to take that. "All enemies of the Clan die." Exactly what does that mean?'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Our culture is Clan. There are dozens of Clans, and the members inside each Clan are related, in some way or another, to all of the other members of that Clan. Our society started out with one real Clan, and after we established ourselves, that Clan split into two Clans. The others who were with them who didn't want to become a Clan formed their own group, but they eventually ended up becoming another Clan themselves, and ended up joining us in our war against our enemies.'

'And who are your enemies?' Chakotay smiled, trying to soften the question so it wouldn't seem as demanding.

'The Consortium. A group of seventy five species who have enslaved thousands of other species and eliminated hundreds of other species that they deemed to be threats to their dominance. Our race is the only one that they have tried to eliminate that they haven't succeeded in exterminating so far.'

'That sounds very bad. Didn't the Federation offer to help you when you were at DS9?'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'They initially thought that we were refugees. We had nine ships, and eight of them are the standard scout claw for our Clan. We were a small scouting force, cut off from our Clan, and we weren't sure how to get back to them. It wasn't until much later that they learned the truth about us. By then, it was much too late for their enemies to do anything about the situation. We already knew whose side we were on in their conflict, so we rendered assistance and helped them defeat the combined forces of the Dominion, the Cardassians, and the Breen.'

Tuvok raised an eyebrow. 'You had eight small scout ships, one other ship, and you engaged in combat?'

'Combat is the normal way of life for the Clans. It is the only way that we survive against our enemies, for they are constantly searching for us and they constantly attack us whenever and wherever they find us. Just as we attack them whenever the opportunity presents itself.'

Seven nodded. 'Your cloaking is very good, so I'm sure that would help you engage in combat against the vast forces that you faced without suffering excessive losses.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'I have some data for you, as I said. We have records of the fleets that were engaged in the combat, as well as the results of the combat. I've also included some of our meetings with the representatives of the Federation Council, StarFleet, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Empire. I believe that things will be much easier for you to deal with and we can save a lot of time if we just do some preliminary meetings now and give you time to sort through the data. You'll understand much more about us and have much more background on our past dealings with the Federation and what our previous agreements with them encompassed.'

Janeway and the others nodded. 'OK, what can you tell us before we spend time going over the data that you're providing for us?'

'We're hunting the Borg and spending time exploring the Delta quadrant while we wait for a cyclic wormhole to open up so that we can try to get back to our Clan. We've detected Borg ships moving in a line that would indicate that they are headed in this general direction, but we're no longer near the transwarp conduit, so if they do come here, it will probably be by using warp. We're still not sure what they were searching for or going after, but from what we've been told, Borg ships don't generally travel in groups, and we know that there were three or four ships traveling through the transwarp conduit in quick succession.'

Seven nodded. 'That would indicate that they were specifically after something that they considered to be important. Either something that they were going to fight, or something that they didn't think a single scout sphere was capable of assimilating properly on its own.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'That's what we thought as well. And why we were hoping to intercept them. We certainly don't want the Borg assimilating something that they think is that important.' She smiled. 'That's why we're very glad that we found you and your ship before the Borg did.'

Janeway looked surprised. 'The Borg have been a nuisance and a constant threat to us for years. Why would you think that we were so important to them now?'

'Because, whether they know it or not, your ship would give them a technological advantage over the rest of this galaxy if they were able to capture it now and put some of your recent discoveries to work.'

'What could we possibly have that would be of so much importance to the Borg?'

'Well, for starters, you've done more research and development toward working out a way to actually get into and use hyperspace than the entire Alpha quadrant has so far, unless they've really been doing a lot of intense research into the field since we left DS9 a few years ago. And while you don't have everything worked out yet, you do have the basics down. The other reason that you need to worry about being captured by the Borg is that you have developed gravitic drives.'

'Yes, but both of those were very recent discoveries, and the Borg couldn't possibly know about them. I know that the gravitic drives are better than our current impulse engines, but they're not THAT much better and faster.'

'They don't have to be. They don't require fuel or energy, since they use the gravity waves all around you to provide the energy to move your ship from one point to another. Yes, you input some energy to change or alter the field to compress the waves, to increase or decrease the attraction, and to alter your speed, but all of those things are offset by the energy that you get back while you're moving and the energy that you recapture from the system as it's converted from inertial energy to stored potential energy when you stop.'

B'elana looked surprised and thoughtful when she realized that they could capture some of the inertial energy and store it to reduce the energy required for their engines to function. She hadn't had time to think their new propulsion system through that much and try to optimize it.

'Our systems aren't fully set up to take advantage of all of those things. We are still working on ways to recapture all of the energy that we can. Currently, our drives are operating at seventy percent efficiency.'

Kahmmhi smiled at Tuvok. 'It won't take that long or that much effort to actually improve your efficiency once you have access to more materials and better materials. Once you return to the Federation, they already have some synthesizers that we gave them that will be able to produce materials that will allow you to build proper inertial compensators. If you use the inertial compensators instead of your current inertial dampeners and structural integrity fields, you will actually have closer to ninety percent efficiency on your energy utilization.'

Janeway's eyebrows arched in surprise. Seven looked astonished. 'Ninety percent efficiency? That is amazing. The Borg don't believe that performance and efficiency such as that is even possible.'

'Ninety percent is better than our enemy can achieve, but it's still not even close to Clan standards. Any of our compensators or drives that's only operating at ninety percent efficiency would be scrapped unless the Clan or ship that was using it was desperate for parts and materials. Most Clans routinely scrap them if their efficiency falls to ninety five percent.'

B'elana looked even more stunned than Seven or anyone else in the room, and couldn't help hearing the words "FALLS to ninety five percent" echoing in her mind repeatedly.

Janeway cleared her throat. 'You said that you gave some of your technology to the Federation?'

'We gave them some synthesizers. We told them how to manufacture their own lasers that will have a range of four million kliks, and they're busy building those, as well as power sources for them, so that they have their own independent power sources in combat. They're improving their armor, and rebuilding the captured ships that are larger and more powerful than anything that the Federation or their allies had before, and upgrading them with the new weapons systems and armor as well.'

'That sounds like a lot of work.'

'It appeared to be enough to tax their manpower for a while, but they're doing what they can to start putting some of the new ships into service and just retiring smaller ships like the Voyager class so that their crews can be put to better use. The Federation's share of the captured ships ended up being more than five hundred ships.'

Chakotay blinked in surprise. 'And how large are these ships that they consider phasing out Voyager class ships to be expedient because they're too small and not powerful enough?'

Krohn stepped forward and handed Kahmmhi his comp, having already pulled up the file that she would need. She thanked him and looked at the comp. 'Eighty scout ships that are somewhat smaller than an Excelsior class starship, and are about the size of a Klingon battlecruiser. We don't know what they intend to use them for, or if they're even keeping them in service, either. They may decide to use them for scrap and add additional armor to some of the larger ships using their materials. If not, they'll probably use them as scout ships and do exploration with them. Three hundred and twenty five warships that are just larger than a Voyager class starship. They have much heavier armor and weapons, and the weapons are being upgraded on the ones that are being put into service right now. Those are probably going to be the ships that they use as escorts for the larger ships or patrol ships. One hundred and seven battle frigates that are the size of a Galaxy class starship, more or less. They have much heavier armor and more weapons systems, so they're being upgraded and having additional armor put on them.'

Chakotay looked confused. 'That is already five hundred ships.'

'Yes. There were also five troop transports, each five times larger than a Sovereign class starship, and those were being put into service immediately for transporting things and allowing them to move large numbers of people around quickly. And eight battleships, each eight times larger than a Sovereign class starship, and much more powerful. They had a lot of armor on them compared to any of the other ships, and the Federation and their allies are currently working on making that armor at least ten times thicker than it was, using the methods for manufacturing their new armor that we showed them how to make. It will improve the hull armor and the structural stability of the ships immensely.'

Seven and B'elana both nodded, realizing that the armor's strength would be at least the equivalent of that of a Galaxy class starship and its shields at full power, even without any shields.

'It sounds like you did a lot to help them improve their fleets.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Not as much as they wanted. We convinced them that they weren't ready to handle travel in hyperspace, and that gravitic drives were beyond the capability of their culture to support right then. Also, that they could use some of our weapons, but not others because they simply lacked the technology and materials to even begin to make them. They can make lasers that work along the same principles as ours do, but the best lasers that they can make with the materials that they can use are only good for about four million kliks.'

'How much range do your own weapons have?' B'elana was very curious.

'Seven million kliks for the lasers on both the assault frigates and the other small ships in the scout claw. Ten million kliks for our larger ship.'

'And how powerful are your lasers at that range?' Seven was definitely interested now. The Borg had nothing that could even pose a threat to another ship at that range.

'Powerful enough to have destroyed the Dominion battleships that we captured if we hadn't landed troops on them and taken them intact so that the Federation and their allies could use them against the Dominion and other threats in the future.'

Janeway cleared her throat. 'You said that you had convinced the Federation and their allies that they weren't ready to handle hyper travel, and that they couldn't build proper gravitic drives, but our own development of gravitic drives shows that you were mistaken.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'No, we weren't mistaken. We knew that they had the technology to build gravitic drives. What we told them was that their culture wasn't ready for them because they couldn't support that type of technology and all of the things that would be derived from it right then. They already had too many other things causing massive changes in their culture, their way of life, and everything else.'

'What types of things?'

'They'd just fought a war, and learned that they weren't really prepared for a massive, well organized invasion. They are in the process of gearing up for the threat of war, since they now realize that there are still potential enemies in the Gamma quadrant who are expanding toward the Alpha quadrant, there are known enemies who pose a threat in the Delta quadrant, specifically the Dominion and the Borg that they already know of, and they have no idea what the Beta quadrant has in store for them. They are reworking their ships to make them much more powerful, arm them much more heavily, give them some additional small craft to be used both defensively and offensively if necessary, and they are improving the armor on all of their ships. They are also trying to encourage many more people to enter StarFleet and get the necessary training to become the personnel that they will require for this new, much larger and more powerful fleet.'

Tuvok nodded thoughtfully. 'That would, indeed, cause a tremendous amount of social stress. Even taking enough time to train the people properly and rework the ships as thoroughly as they can, it would require a massive amount of time, energy, and personnel. Even with the assistance that you gave them, expanding StarFleet and its forces by the degree that you are suggesting would require several decades of intense work.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'When you reach them, that will probably decrease when you bring them the ability to use gravitic engines. Fortunately, you won't be using hyper in that short amount of time. While you could try to develop hyper travel, I will warn you now that you won't like the results. There are intrinsic dangers to traveling through hyperspace.'

'We are aware of the nature of the walls that line the tunnel that we found.'

'Yes, hyper streams. Once you figure out how to maintain your shields and you have gravitic drives and inertial compensators that work well enough to protect you, hyper travel is easy. That does not, however, make it safe.'

Janeway nodded. 'We'd need to know where we're going, or we'd be traveling blind. We already figured that out when we started trying to explore the first "hyper stream", as you call it, that we discovered. We have been able to open a number of hyper streams and gather large amounts of antimatter that is coming through them when we open them.'

'That is another danger. You're contaminating your space with antimatter when you try to enter hyper. You need to discover a way to open a hyper point without allowing antimatter to leak through, or you will have problems to deal with in the future, especially if you begin using hyperspace as a routine means of travel.'

'Any other dangers?'

'Well, if you run into any trouble, you won't know where you are in relation to where you were unless you travel through hyper. There are systems that don't have hyper points, so you're limited to exploring or traveling to systems that DO have hyper points unless you want to take the time to travel to other systems by other means. We don't use warp travel because of its inherent dangers, and skipping between systems using hyperspace and doing microjumps won't work in any time frame that you'd care to consider if you don't have better structural integrity or inertial compensators than your technology can currently support. And there is still the problem of entering hyper somewhere other than at a hyper stream's naturally occurring hyper point. If you enter a stream anywhere other than at its terminus, you will quickly become lost. Streams move around in hyper, and there are no fixed reference points to allow you to navigate outside of a stream, so you end up moving without knowing your direction or distance. We've done it before in emergencies as a Clan, but we weren't as interested in knowing where we were as we were in surviving the immediate threat. Our war with the Consortium has raged continuously for millennia.'

Nobody in the room wanted to make a comment about that. They knew that Kahmmhi's people had been at war with their enemy, but they couldn't imagine any society actually surviving that long when they were constantly at war. The strain on their society and their resources would eventually cause their society to collapse. Their systems would eventually run out of resources because of the demands, no matter how good their systems were at efficiency or how well they recycled their resources.

'Can you tell us anything else about how things are in the Federation?'

'We tried to include as much as possible about that in the data that we're giving you.' Kahmmhi handed Janeway a comp. 'All of the files that you should need are included on this comp. You can download anything that you want to your own systems or comps, or you can use this comp to go over the material.' She smiled. 'I'm sure that you'll feel much more secure if you don't download any of the material on the comp, just in case we put anything into the programs or on the comp that would allow us to breach the security on your systems.'

Chakotay and Tuvok looked at each other. Chakotay was smiling and trying not to laugh at the open way that Kahmmhi was acknowledging their need for security. Tuvok was openly surprised that the leader of the Clan would actually address such issues openly upon first meeting another group of people, even if she had dealt with Federation representatives in the past.

Seven looked at Janeway. 'If you would allow us, Tuvok and I could spend time going over as much of the material on the comp as we can, and we can give you a synopsis and allow you to view the more relevant files yourself.'

Janeway nodded. 'Chakotay can help you with it if you'd like. And make sure that you inform B'elana of any files that pertain to engineering or any modifications that we can make to our systems.'

'Certainly, captain.'

Janeway smiled. 'Since they're obviously eager to get to work and examine the files that you brought, perhaps I could take you on a tour of our ship?'

'I appreciate the gesture, but I would rather defer for now. I'm sure that you'll feel much more at ease with our presence if we allow you some time to go over the files and verify everything for yourselves before you spend time with us or take us on any tours of your ship. We are very aware of security concerns, and know how the Federation normally handles such things.'

Janeway couldn't argue the fact that she would have given them a very abbreviated tour of the ship, and that certain things would not have been included in the tour. Just as she would not have expected to be given a complete tour of any of Kahmmhi's ships on their first meeting either.

'Very well. I believe that we've covered the introductions and the basics fairly well. When would you suggest we meet again?'

'Why don't we give you two or three days to go over the material that we provided? We were at DS9 for quite some time before we left, and there is a lot of material. And I'm sure that you and your people will want to spend some time examining the material to learn as much as you can about what has happened in the Federation in the time that you've been gone.'

Janeway nodded, smiling in appreciation. 'Thank you. I'll contact you if we have any questions, and once we've gone over the material that you provided, I'll set up another meeting.'

Kahmmhi nodded and rose. Chakotay volunteered to guide them back to the airlock, and she graciously accepted. She didn't even notice the Federation guards who were following them, or the security detachment that was still guarding the airlock. She'd had plenty of time to get used to ignoring their presence while she was on DS9, and had been trained to ignore security forces like that from the time that her grandfather had assigned Shadows to her as a young girl. While she was growing up, her Shadows weren't the only security troops who had followed her around, even while she was on board the Home Ship.

Virginia and Kahmmhi spent the next two days waiting to hear from Voyager while their scouts explored and mapped the entire system. Since they were going to remain in the system for a while at least, Virginia also sent out picket forces to extend their sensor range and give them early warning of anything approaching the system.

Kahmmhi spent a number of hours talking with Captain Janeway, answering questions and giving her more details to explain why certain things that were included in the materials that they had been given had happened. Janeway listened intently, asked for clarification of certain things, and resumed her own duties. The more she learned about the Clan, their technology, and their activities, the more interested she seemed to become.

Janeway looked at Tuvok and the others around the table as the staff meeting began. 'OK. I assume that we are all in agreement that the records that we were given are accurate?'

Tuvok nodded. 'The voiceprints match our records for the officials that we have on file in our own database, sir, and I have met several of them personally, and can find no reason to doubt that the recordings are genuine. There appears to be no evidence of any tampering at all, though some of the records are incomplete.'

'Yes, well, we expected that. We got enough to show what happened there, and they were there for much longer than six months. And there are some security concerns. Though I really was surprised that Kahmmhi included some of the records that she did. Until I realized that she finally admitted to the Federation that they had actually boarded and destroyed a Dominion ship before they were ever attacked.'

Chakotay nodded. 'It's not like they were bound by our rules and regulations, Captain. And they don't have any treaties with anyone in the Delta quadrant. They didn't even have any treaties with anyone in the Alpha quadrant at the time.'

'Yes, I know. I'm not judging them, but I was surprised by their actions.'

Seven looked at Janeway. 'Captain, their technology is far superior to our own, and their weapons are much more powerful. They wage war even more ruthlessly and effectively than the Borg do.'

'Yes. They certainly had no problem with destroying any Dominion ships that they didn't want to take intact, and destroyed many of them that would have surrendered if they had been given a chance.'

'Sir, they didn't want to end up with vast numbers of Dominion prisoners. The Jem'Haddar are notorious for being aggressive and belligerent.'

Janeway smiled, realizing the statement was ironic, coming from B'elana. Klingons weren't exactly known for being all sweetness and light themselves, and B'elana was no exception, despite being only half Klingon. 'I'm aware of their reasoning, and the fact that they took any prisoners at all during the battle was astonishing once I realized what their normal combat tactics are. They really did take great pains to respect our wishes and try to conform to our rules and regulations whenever it didn't threaten their security or pose too much of a threat to our own security.'

'So far they have given us a lot of information that is important to us for a number of reasons, but can we really trust them?'

'They left the Alpha quadrant at DS9 about ten years ago, Chakotay. They have been going slowly, exploring, and taking their time, and they are already here. They could probably have all of us back at DS9 in five years, possibly even less than that, if they really wanted to go out of their way to rescue us. Even if they didn't, if we could get this ship capable of traveling safely through hyper, we could use their hyper maps to get us back to DS9 in about the same amount of time. It would cut decades off of our return trip. Even if we had to remain here for a decade to make all of the modifications to the ship before we even began our journey.'

Tuvok nodded. 'That is true, but there would be a lot of obstacles to be overcome if we were to attempt that. They have already told us that our ship probably couldn't survive the stresses that would be involved in using hyperspace travel.'

'They also said that we weren't ready to develop gravitic engines, but we have, completely independently of them and any influence that learning of their technology might have had on our own research.'

Janeway looked back and forth between them, realizing that Tuvok and Seven both had valid points. There were also at least some qualifiers that needed to be added to each of their statements. Qualifiers that would change the overall validity of each of their arguments to some degree.

She was about to point that out when there was an urgent call from the bridge. 'Captain, we just received an urgent message from Kahmmhi. They say that a Borg force is approaching this system, and that it will be here in just a few hours if they maintain their present course and speed.'

Janeway ordered the ship to go to yellow alert, then looked at the others. None of them even bothered to ask how the Clan ships could detect something that was traveling at warp speed before it actually reached them or the system that they were in.

Kahmmhi smiled as the reports came in from her pickets. 'What do we have?'

'Four ships. One is shaped like a sphere. Three are shaped like cubes. The cubes are larger.'

'How long until they get here?'

'They passed our outer ships already. They're traveling well beyond light speed. Warp five or six when they went past the pickets. They'll be here in about two hours, possibly three if they slow down as they cross the system.'

'Good.' There were advantages to using hyperspace. Such as having your pickets pop into hyper, broadcast an alert where it couldn't possibly be detected in real space, and allowing it to travel through hyperspace at greater than relativistic speeds because of the difference between positions in hyperspace and in real space, and the signal being sent directly to their ship from the comsat that they had stationed at the hyper point. 'Are we ready for them?'

'They don't know that we're here, and we're fairly certain that they won't be able to detect Voyager. If they don't see anything, we'll have total surprise whenever you decide to begin an attack.'

Kahmmhi nodded, then went over to talk with Virginia about some last minute strategy before the enemy was in the system with them and in range. They'd already gone over most of their battle plans, and had worked out several different scenarios on how best to handle the Borg when they finally met them in combat. Kahmmhi was satisfied that they'd come up with some strategies that would work very well, while limiting the ability of the Borg to actually learn anything of military significance during their encounters. Now, all that they had to do was wait.

Janeway wasn't surprised when four Borg ships finally came out of warp and registered on their sensors in the system. She was surprised when they immediately began moving directly toward the hyper point that Paris and Seven had been investigating.

'They're moving directly toward the hyper portal that we were investigating, Captain.'

'I can see that, Mr. Tuvok. Do you have any suggestions as to why they would do that?'

'It is possible that they are able to detect anomalies such as wormholes when they open, and they detected our opening of the portals as a wormhole event.' Tuvok paused, clearly thinking something over. 'If that is the case, captain, they may be tracking our passage through this region by the activation of hyper portals, and they may have been following us in an attempt to discover who or what was creating these unusual phenomena. The first system that they were heading to, according to the data given to us by the Clan, would have been the first system where we actually began investigating hyperspace.'

Janeway looked surprised, then realized that she shouldn't be surprised by that suggestion. She knew that the Borg were always investigating anything that appeared to be unusual, especially if there were any indications that it wasn't natural in nature. They were always looking for new, superior technology to be assimilated and added to their Collective. They would definitely think that anything that could create an artificial wormhole would qualify as something that should be assimilated.

'They must think that we're creating artificial wormholes.'

'Possibly, Captain. However, they may have been able to study the residual energy at the locations that we have already been to and determine that there is antimatter in the area at much higher densities than normal. That could lead them to speculate that they are not dealing with wormholes.'

'If so, they'll probably be even more determined to assimilate whatever new technology is responsible for this.'

'Should we power up the phaser banks?'

'No. Right now, they don't seem to be able to detect us while we're cloaked. I doubt that they have any way at all to detect the Clan ships in the system.'

The hive queen was confused by the readings that they were getting at this new location. Whatever had been inside the other systems had definitely been here. The residual energy readings were definitely the same, but there was no antimatter anywhere on their scans. She communicated with the other ships, ordering them to spread out and search the area intensely. There had to be SOMETHING here. SOME sign of whatever was creating these anomalies. They just had to expand their search until something finally showed up on their scanners so that they could learn more about what was happening. Whatever was responsible for this, it MUST be assimilated and added to the Borg Collective.

Kahmmhi couldn't believe that the Borg ships were coming straight toward her position. 'What the hell are they doing?'

'Heading directly toward the hyper point. They must have been detecting the openings that Voyager's crew was doing in their experiments. They've been tracking them.'

'That, or they see our ships.'

Virginia laughed. 'Not with their primitive systems. They haven't even detected Voyager yet, or they would have already contacted them, since they've been trying to assimilate Voyager for a while now.'

'Yeah? Well, I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. If they get up close and personal, we'll solve their problem for them before they even know what hit them.'

'What are we going to do if they discover Voyager?'

Kahmmhi smiled grimly. 'Then we'll make sure that they know that it's really personal.'

Virginia nodded. 'Laura, let the gun crews know that they're on standby, and that includes the laser batteries. Same orders for the ready talons that we have on stand-by.'

'Aye, sir. Orders out.'

As they watched the Borg ships move slowly and cautiously toward their position, they realized that they were spreading out, and that they were moving as if they were searching intently for something. Before the ships could come into range for the attack that Kahmmhi wanted to use, they stopped and started moving across the system toward a different location.

'They've detected Voyager, and they're converging on the location that the ship is in.' The call came from the nav officer.

'How sure are you?' Virginia was worried. She knew exactly how fragile and weak Voyager class ships were from their time in the Alpha quadrant. They were, and had been, small craft by Clan standards for several millennia now, even among the Clans that couldn't build larger fleets with the resources that they had access to.

'Relatively. There are no communications that I can detect yet, but they are all moving in the general direction of Voyager. They don't seem to be moving rapidly, so...'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'They're not sure that the ship is there, but they're converging on the general location so that they can overlap their sensors and make sure. They're trying to box them in, making sure that they can't really run. They know that the cloaking devices don't work as well when the ship is moving at higher speeds.'

'What do you want to do?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'What kind of distance do we have between them and Voyager?'

'About one hundred thousand kliks and closing. Why?' Virginia was wondering what Kahmmhi had in mind.

'Do the HATs that are on standby have any specials on board?'

Laura checked quickly. 'They've got some Q-bombs, but they're only fifties.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Perfect. Launch three talons. Target the cubes. Make sure that they are positioned between the cubes and Voyager, and that they launch along a track that lines up perfectly with Voyager's position. Take them out on my signal.'

Virginia smiled as she realized what Kahmmhi had in mind. The Borg wouldn't even know that the Clan was there, and if they could detect anything at all, they'd think that the unknown ship that they could barely detect was responsible for the destruction of their ships. Fifties were more than large enough to take out the cubes completely, yet small enough that even if the cubes got very close to Voyager, the risk to the Federation ship was minimal.

'I'm picking up transmissions. They appear to originate with the Borg ship. The sphere.'

'Put it on the screen.'

'We are Borg. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilated.'

There was no response. That confused the hive queen. Aliens almost always responded to their broadcast, even if it was just to resist and deny the inevitable. She checked again, and the readings were clearer than they had been before. It was hard to make out, but there was some kind of ship using a cloaking device, and it was now trapped between the three Borg cubes. It's fate was sealed.

'We are Borg. Unidentified ship of an unknown alien species, you will be assimilated and your technology will be added to the Borg Collective. Prepare to be assimilated. Resistance is futile.'

There was still no response at all.

Janeway looked between Chakotay and Tuvok. 'Suggestions?'

'Keep silent and don't give away our position. They haven't targeted us yet, and they're not within transporter range, so they can't beam any drones on board right now.'

Tuvok nodded. 'They do not appear to be able to locate our exact position. Answering them would simply give them a means to triangulate our position and pinpoint our location. Even if it wasn't enough to give them an exact fix, it would definitely narrow down the area for them.'

Janeway nodded. 'Is there any way that we can move out of this box that they're trying to put us inside?'

Paris looked thoughtful, then shook his head. 'If they're using their sensors like I think they are, concentrating everything that they have to detect anything in this small area, they could even detect our maneuvering thrusters being used, captain. Impulse would be risky at best, and warp is out of the question. They'd detect our warp signature before we could even start moving.'

'It's too bad that we haven't been able to develop a gravitic engine for Voyager, then, since they'd be unlikely to be able to detect that.' Janeway paused. 'Could we launch the shuttle that you have the gravitic engine in and use it to our advantage?'

'It doesn't have cloaking yet. They'd detect it immediately upon launch, and assume that it had to come from the ship, so they'd concentrate all of their fire and efforts on the point where we first appeared.'

Janeway shook her head, feeling trapped and helpless. A Borg force this strong was something that she hadn't really planned on. They could run and fight against a sphere, or even a cube, but not a sphere and three cubes. She sighed. 'Thank goodness Kahmmhi and her people haven't done anything to draw the attention of the Borg to them and their ships. At least the Borg can't detect them, and they'll have a chance to get away.'

Chakotay looked at her as if she had said something that he considered to be very foolish. 'I don't know about you, Captain, but Kahmmhi didn't seem the sort to be sitting out there doing nothing. She said that they were here hunting Borg.'

Tuvok nodded, his one eyebrow still arched in surprise from hearing Janeway's statement. 'I must agree with Commander Chakotay. The Clan, by their own records, appears to live for warfare, and are much more violent and aggressive than the Klingons or Romulans ever were.'

Janeway looked at him. 'And what do you think she can do with a small scouting force?'

Tuvok shrugged. 'Without knowing at least some of the specifications and capabilities of their ships, their level of technology, or other variables that are totally unknown at this time, I cannot even begin to make an educated guess, Captain. Anything that I did come up with would be based totally on speculation and conjecture.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that Tuvok didn't know any more about the Clan than she did. As he had just so eloquently reminded her.

'Distance to the Borg cubes?'

'Fifty thousand kilometers and closing, Captain. Roughly. Their distance varies, since we're not in the center of their formation yet.'

Janeway nodded, watching the view on her main screen intently, wondering how long it would be before they had enough overlap on their sensors to pinpoint the position of her ship. She turned to Chakotay. 'They'll be able to detect our phasers powering up, and they'll be able to detect photon torpedoes if we charge them. How rapidly can we go from our current status to combat capable?'

'In drills, about fifteen seconds.'

'Make sure that they know that this time is the one that counts. When I give the word, I want all phasers and all photon torpedoes ready for action and firing as rapidly as possible. We may go down, but it certainly won't be without a fight.'

Chakotay nodded and began relaying the orders.

'We're in position, and we have the shot.'

'Roger. Distance to target?'

'Five thousand kliks from us. We're lined up as ordered, and our back trajectory is confirmed.'

Kahmmhi smiled, then nodded. Laura issued the command. 'Fire in the hole.'

The designated HAT in each talon fired one round out of their torpedo tubes, and a single canister, roughly the size of a fifty five gallon drum, left each position, heading toward the Borg cube that was approaching them. Each one was stealthed, even though that wasn't really necessary to make them almost impossible to detect. Even Clan sensors couldn't detect their mines without using their IFF codes and pinging them to get a return signal. Nobody in the Clan believed that either the Borg or the Federation would be able to detect the mines.

The hive queen was getting irritated. Their prey was very good at hiding, but they would find them. They were getting closer, and soon they would have the ship pinpointed. She was coordinating the efforts of the three cubes as she held position outside of their formation. Soon. The enemy was getting trapped inside a smaller box, and the size of that box was gradually decreasing. Very soon, the enemy would have to fire and give away his position or be assimilated without opposition. There were no other options left to them.

She was directly linked to the brains of the drones controlling the search on each ship when suddenly the link was gone. The hive queen screamed in pain and terror as the link was broken in a way that she had never heard of or experienced before. It was like a part of her own consciousness had just been erased, and every bit of contact that she normally maintained with a drone when she was in direct contact with it had been erased in an instant. In a fraction of a microsecond, everything had just ceased. There was nothing there, and when she tried to reestablish a link with the drones or the ships, there was nothing there for her mind to touch. She couldn't detect any cortical implants at all other than the ones that were in the drones on board her own ship. She quickly checked with the instruments on her own ship, horrified to discover that the three Borg cubes were no longer capable of being detected. All her own instruments showed was that there was a huge explosion of enormous magnitude in the exact locations of all three Borg cubes at the exact instant that they all disappeared. The hive queen immediately turned her ship toward the edge of the system and began fleeing at the fastest possible speed. Within seconds, she had achieved high warp and was running from the system while she was still desperately trying to contact the Borg Collective to warn them of the danger that she had just discovered.

Janeway and her crew were shocked, left stunned and speechless as they watched the sudden explosions that occurred. When the flash from the explosions disappeared, there was nothing left out there. All three Borg cubes had been totally destroyed in a fraction of a second, and there was absolutely no trace of them on any of their sensors.

'There has to be something left out there, Tuvok.'

'All of our scans show only residual energy from the blast and the fleeing Borg sphere. It is already moving across the system at their maximum warp speed, sir. They can't maintain that speed for very long outside of a transwarp conduit without risking severe damage to their drives. There is nothing left of any of the three Borg cubes that were there, Captain.'

Janeway couldn't help thinking that while flight was normal and understandable, she hadn't ever seen ANY Borg ship actually show that kind of response before. They were fleeing as if they were in terror.

Chakotay shook his head. 'What in the world did they do?'

Janeway nodded, realizing that Chakotay was attributing the destruction of the Borg cubes to the Clan ships. She didn't want to admit it, but she had to agree that it was the only explanation that made any sense at all. Which only made her even more worried about just how powerful the Clan could be.

'Tuvok, please go over the battle data with Seven and let me know your findings as soon as possible.'

'What about the Borg, Captain?'

'What Borg? The cubes are gone, probably destroyed. And the sphere retreated faster than anything that I've ever seen the Borg do before. Something scared them, and I have a very good idea that I know who or what that particular something is. I'm hoping that I'll have a better idea about why they were scared when you finish going over that data for me and give me the highlights.'

'Yes, Captain. I'll get Seven, and we'll finish it up right away.'

'Should we contact the Clan?'

Janeway shook her head. 'Not yet. Let's see what they want to do, and how they want to do it.'

Kahmmhi smiled in satisfaction as the message came in from her small craft. 'Three up, three down. The side was retired. Total destruction of all three Borg cubes. Distance was far enough that the Voyager wasn't caught in the blast. I don't even think they felt any of the residuals and secondary effects.'

'Affirmative. Return to base.'

'Aye, command. HATs returning to the roost.'

'What about the sphere that's running?'

Kahmmhi smiled at Laura. 'Make sure that the perimeter pickets know to let them go without giving away their positions. Maintain positions. Let's see if they want to assimilate their new discovery badly enough to come back in force.' She smiled. 'We're dangling the bait for them, and they don't even know that we don't even need the bait to remain here. Voyager could leave right now and they'd still think that they had to come here to track them down as long as they don't open any more hyper portals to draw the Borg to a different system to start their search from.'

'Should we contact them?'

Kahmmhi smiled and shook her head. 'Not yet. I promised to give them more time than this to go over the data that we already gave them so that they know what is going on in the Alpha quadrant, and exactly how truthful we'd been about what we'd told them when we first met.'

Virginia nodded. Kahmmhi was the one in charge, so the call was hers to make.

Janeway stared at Tuvok in shock. 'They what?'

'The Federation formed an alliance with both the Romulan Empire and the Klingon Empire after the Clan forces, led by Kahmmhi, managed to almost singlehandedly destroy the majority of the fleet that was attacking DS9. The combined forces of the Federation and their allies managed to hold out against the first assault wave of the Dominion forces after the Clan boarded the largest and most powerful ships in the first wave. The Clan then subsequently attacked and either destroyed or captured the remaining four waves of Dominion forces.'

'How is something like that even possible?' Chakotay sounded just as amazed and stunned as Janeway was.

'Their technology is even better than that of the Federation and the Dominion. And, as we have seen during recent events, it appears to be much better than that of the Borg as well.'

'Do we have any idea what happened?'

Seven shook her head. 'We still haven't determined what happened. There was some sort of explosion, and the magnitude was even larger than that generated by a warp core breach. We know that there were three small electromagnetic pulses immediately prior to the explosions, and that the explosions occurred simultaneously. We still don't know what caused the pulses, but they did occur at some distance from the point of the explosions. As far as we can determine, the explosions occurred within twenty kilometers of the surface of the Borg ships.'

'What could possibly cause an explosion of that sort?'

'We still don't know. It wasn't antimatter. We were able to detect some sort of pulse or wave effect at the time of the explosion, but it is unlike anything that we've ever seen before. Our records indicate that nothing similar has ever been recorded by any Federation vessel. However, similar explosions of even larger magnitude were part of the opening attack against the Dominion forces that were attacking DS9. The attack was initiated by Clan forces.'

Janeway nodded. 'Obviously, they have weapons that use technology that we don't have or understand right now, and they use them quite effectively. What else do we know about the Clan?'

'They met with Federation representatives during their time at DS9. They were treated as foreign dignitaries and diplomats. Kahmmhi is the daughter of her Clan's leader, and the granddaughter of the leader of the largest and most powerful Clan.'

Janeway shook her head in disbelief. 'After meeting with her and seeing how sociable and friendly she is, and how much she hates formality, I can't imagine a society in which Kahmmhi is some sort of princess.' Janeway really didn't want to even think about Kahmmhi being some sort of warrior princess any more than she wanted to think about what it would be like to deal with an entire society that was that warlike and aggressive.

Janeway knew that she had given the impression of having much more power and control than she actually had many times since they had first arrived in the Delta quadrant. It had been necessary to seem much more cruel, cold, and bloodthirsty than they actually were just in order to survive. Perhaps that was why the Clan seemed to be so bloodthirsty and determined to find their enemy. Though she had to admit that the evidence indicated that they were definitely capable of inflicting damage in combat, even to the Borg. 'They seem to be even more warlike and aggressive than the Klingons, and they are absolutely singleminded in their determination to find the Borg and fight them.' She sighed, shaking her head. 'But I still find it difficult to picture Kahmmhi being some sort of warrior princess. She's so tiny, and so calm and peaceful. And their society couldn't possibly be THAT warlike and aggressive or they'd have destroyed themselves long before they reached their current level of technology.'

Seven shrugged. 'As difficult as it may be to believe, Captain, that is what our records indicate. They are not human, even though they appear to be human. We know that their genetics are distinctly different from our own, but there are no details or medical records in the data that they gave us. They made a non-aggression pact with all of the members of the alliance, and they even helped work out some of the more technical parts of the formal relations and agreements between the Federation, the Romulans, and the Klingons. Things that are the basis of the continuation of their Alliance.'

Janeway looked surprised as she turned to look at Chakotay. He appeared to be just as surprised and impressed by that information as she was. 'Kahmmhi seems to be very motivated to get results. Do we know anything about their technology?'

'Only that they use gravitic engines for travel in real space, they use hyperspace travel to move between systems and go long distances, they have technology that is far more advanced than our own, and their tactics seem to be highly effective for both space combat and ground combat. They overwhelmed the Jem'Haddar forces on board the ships that they boarded while they were outnumbered approximately a hundred to one.'

Chakotay blinked, then swallowed nervously. 'If they're that good, her Shadows could probably take out our entire security forces on board the ship by themselves.'

Tuvok nodded. 'Quite probably, commander. The data that we have does include several encounters that they had while they were on DS9. Kahmmhi broke a Nosikan's blade with her bare hands and threw him across a room with one arm after he put his knife clear through her arm. When station security showed up to stop the fight because it was reported that three armed Nosikans had gone wild in Quark's bar, they shot one of her Shadows. The phaser had no effect on their armor. Their sidearm left a three foot diameter hole in the bulkhead with one shot. They use ancient projectile weapons, but their projectiles are powerful enough to cause that type of damage to duranium bulkheads with a single shot.'

Janeway sighed, realizing that Kahmmhi's looks were definitely deceiving if she could throw a Nosikan, even if it had probably been due to an adrenaline rush giving her superhuman strength. Just the fact that she didn't try to run, but fought instead, showed that they definitely took combat seriously in the Clan. 'I think that by now we all realize that if the Clan had hostile intentions, they could have already destroyed this ship or overwhelmed our defenses without very much difficulty, Mr. Tuvok. So, since they seem to be interested in peaceful meetings with us, and they would probably be willing to help us because of their previous treaty with the Federation and the rather unique circumstances of our current situation, I think that we should invite Kahmmhi over for another visit.' She smiled, but it was a wan, sickly looking smile. 'I don't think that we have to worry about security concerns, or at least not any security concerns regarding technology transfer. There definitely doesn't appear to be any risk of us breaking the Prime Directive and contaminating their culture with our technology.'

Nobody commented about that. Most of them were still working on coming to grips with the fact that the Clan had just destroyed three Borg cubes in the blink of an eye. And while it might have been considered a sneak attack or an ambush, the very fact that the Borg couldn't detect their ships in the first place indicated that the Clan could repeat their tactics at will. The Borg certainly hadn't been given any chances to learn from the encounter so that they could try to adapt their defenses to overcome this newly encountered technology.

The hive queen had managed to calm herself down. She had contacted the Collective, and consensus had been achieved once again. A larger force, including some larger ships, was being sent to her location so that they could find and assimilate this new threat. While she was waiting for their arrival, she began studying all of the sensor logs that remained, looking for anything at all that would let her determine what had happened to the cubes that had been destroyed. So far, she had discovered that there had been a very small electromagnetic pulse before the attack. Further analysis had revealed that there were three separate pulses, each a certain distance from the nearest Borg cube. Very careful analysis had shown that all three of those pulses could be linked to one central point. The very spot where their sensors had shown the unknown ship had to be located. This was perplexing. The Borg had not discovered this unknown race before, and their technology appeared to be both unique and very highly advanced. The hive queen could not understand why they had just attacked, not even bothering to communicate, as almost all other species that the Borg had ever encountered had done when they were contacted.

As she analyzed this line of reasoning, she did discover a connection to other records. There were species who were highly aggressive or highly xenophobic who opened fire as soon as they were encountered by a scout sphere or an assimilation cube. They were more rarely encountered than the other types of species, and were generally far less technologically advanced, but they had been encountered before. The only other rational explanation that she could come up with was that some species that had heard of the Borg had determined that they would wage war on the Borg whenever they encountered them. This was stupid, and counterproductive in the long run, but many species were more controlled by emotion than logic, especially when they perceived their "individuality" or survival to be threatened.

She began searching her databases for any relevant information. There were no species listed in the area, either from Borg records or captured databases, that possessed any technology approaching levels that would allow them to achieve what had been detected. There were no species in the area, or in any area that the Borg had explored, that would have any reason to simply attack the Borg on sight. There was one notation that did stick out from the rest. Voyager. The Federation ship was trying to make its way back to the Alpha quadrant, and this area was along the general path that the ship would have to take to complete their journey. They had been encountered numerous times by various Borg forces, and had proven themselves to be very difficult to deal with. They had driven off several Borg attacks, had eluded the Borg on several different occasions, and had even defeated several attempts to assimilate them. They were known to be extremely inventive, to acquire and adapt technology from numerous civilizations that they encountered upon their journey, and they were hostile to the Borg in the extreme.

The hive queen contacted the Collective with this new information. There was division, but the final consensus was that Voyager was much more likely to have been the cause of this setback than any other option that was currently available. Until they had more information, she was to assume that Voyager had discovered some new weapon, or had modified some other technology that they had discovered, and had used it on the Borg. She was also to assume that she would have to use force to assimilate and incorporate this new technology. She was to take extreme precautions, but to assimilate this unknown target at all costs. Additional forces would be routed from other sectors, and would converge on her location.

The hive queen was pleased that the Collective was taking this threat so seriously, and was reassured that the additional forces would arrive as soon as they could travel to this region and gather into an overwhelming force. No matter what new technology this was, the Borg would assimilate it, and those who had it would learn that resistance truly was futile.

Janeway greeted Kahmmhi at the airlock. Kahmmhi was surprised to see that there were only two security guards stationed there.

'You seem to have relaxed your security precautions considerably.'

'We're now much more aware of your capabilities, and we know that you really are who you say you are. I don't blame you for thinking that we wouldn't believe your story if you had just come out and told us yourself, but now that we've figured out what is going on, or at least what WENT on in the Alpha quadrant, allow me to welcome you aboard the Federation starship Voyager. We've been lost here for a while, and are currently working our way home.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'We can try to help you in that quest, Captain. We could take your crew on board one of our ships if you'd like. We might even be able to bring your ship along for the ride. I wouldn't want you coming back only to have to tell your superiors that you lost your ship.'

Janeway smiled. She knew that Kahmmhi did have one ship that was larger than the others, but she didn't want to become a burden by overcrowding one of their ships, and she certainly didn't want to split her crew up between the nine Clan ships. And no matter how good Kahmmhi's intentions were, if they were attacked while they were towing her ship, the risk of losing an unmanned ship was just too great. 'If there is any way that you could help us, we will listen and consider your proposal. But I really do want to try to take my ship back under its own power, if that is possible.'

Kahmmhi looked thoughtful, then smiled. 'It would require us to remain in this system for a while. The Borg could return here while we are still busy rebuilding your ship. We don't have a shipyard with us, so all of the repairs that we can make will have to be made manually, so it would take longer.'

'How long would it require for you to make some modifications to my ship that would make it better?'

'Possibly six months. That's not exactly my field of expertise, but I'm fairly certain that it wouldn't take more than six months if we did everything that we possibly could to improve your ship and prepare it for the journey back to the Alpha quadrant.' She smiled. 'What do you think, Krohn?'

'Six months sounds about right. Though that would be longer on their calendar. Thirty weeks.'

Janeway nodded. 'Yeah. Your months are five weeks long. Thirty weeks isn't that long to remain here when it could allow us to shave decades off of our journey.'

'And the Borg? There is a real danger that they will return to this system, either to try to complete their original mission or to investigate and determine what happened to the force that was destroyed during our last encounter with them.'

'We'll deal with them when they come. If they come. You just destroyed three Borg cubes without any warning whatsoever. I'm sure that losses such as that will make them pause and consider their response much more carefully than they usually do whenever they run into someone or something that has a new and unique technology that they would like to add to their Collective.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. She hadn't dealt with the Borg, but she figured that they weren't going to let one little setback stop them. According to all of the records that the Federation had given to the Clan, the Borg were singlemindedly fixated on assimilating any technology that they found that was more advanced than what they currently possessed, especially if they considered it to be something that would be very useful to their Collective. Clan technology certainly fell into that category, and so would the ability to open a hyper portal. With those incentives, she had no doubts that the Borg would continue to try to assimilate this new technology until she pounded home the futility of that course of action so forcefully that even a Borg drone could get the message.

Janeway led them to the mess hall, then sat them down and talked with them while they relaxed and enjoyed a leisurely discussion. She related what had happened to her and her crew, how they had originally been brought to the Delta quadrant, and gave them an overview of their adventures since they had arrived.

'More than half of your crew missing, and a good part of the crew that you have isn't even Federation? You certainly have had to deal with some changes since you got here. But you have made a lot of advances in science and technology on your own as well. They may have already started working on trying to develop gravitics themselves, but the Federation and the Alliance still hadn't started working on that when we left the Alpha quadrant.'

Janeway nodded. 'We've had to be fairly self reliant, and while some of the things that we've had to do broke some StarFleet regulations or Federation laws, they were necessary at the time to ensure our survival.'

'We don't care how many of the regulations that StarFleet or the Federation has that you have broken, Captain. We managed to break a few of them while we were at DS9 ourselves, though they couldn't enforce their rules and regulations on us quite so easily, since we were an independent, alien force.' She smiled. 'And I even managed to skirt the line a few times with some of the promises that I made to Sisko, though even he had to admit that I didn't actually break any of the promises that I made him.'

Janeway smiled. 'I'm sure that he appreciated that.'

Kahmmhi shook her head, smiling as she remembered dealing with Sisko on those occasions. 'Not really, but he did appreciate the challenge of finding some way to word things so that he left me very few loopholes to use. Of course, he was at a disadvantage because he didn't know what I had to work with or what our technology or capabilities actually were.'

Janeway nodded, filing away the fact that Kahmmhi was secretive, devious, and cunning. And the Federation and their allies STILL might not know exactly what kind of forces, resources, or capabilities the Clan possessed. 'What would you have to do to our ship in order to make it so that we could make it back to the Alpha quadrant?'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'That depends on what route you wished to take. You could use your warp engines and just continue your journey along your present course without any help from us at all. But we'd still like to help you armor your ship better, at the very least, so that you're more well protected than you currently are.'

'And what if we wanted to find the fastest way back?'

'That would be by coming aboard my ship and letting us drop you off. But, since I'm fairly certain that you don't want to leave your ship behind, and you already said that you want to bring your ship back under its own power. I'm not sure that we can modify your ship enough to let it move through hyper safely. We can armor it, and we can help you build inertial compensators that should work well enough to allow you to travel through the hyper streams. But it still might require some structural reinforcements, and I'm not sure how extensive those would have to be, or how feasible doing something like that would be.'

Janeway nodded. 'How long would it take your experts to study our ship and determine what they could do?'

'Maybe a week. It could be less than that. I know that some of the tech geeks have been studying the specs and schematics for Federation ships and trying to see if they could work out a way to modify them so that they could become hyper capable without rebuilding them from scratch. We had to do the preliminary analysis of that while we were still in the Alpha quadrant, since that was one thing that the Alliance was very interested in being able to acquire from us. Some of the techs have even been competing to see if they could figure out ways to do it using your current technology, since they have lots of time on their hands to study things that interest them right now. I don't think that any of them have been successful, but since you've developed a few things on your own that the Federation and the others in the Alpha quadrant haven't worked out yet, they may be able to do it. It may not be pretty, but it should work.'

'Would it help if we moved to a different system before we began the modifications?'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'We still have two of our ships out picking up our long range scouts who were out exploring when we first detected the Borg ships moving through transwarp and came here to try to intercept them.' She smiled at Janeway's look. 'And I really do want to hang around here until I'm sure that the Borg aren't going to try to come back and "assimilate" whoever they find in the system. I did tell you that we were here to hunt Borg.'

'Yes, you did. I would say that it's a terribly stupid and risky thing to do, but after seeing what happened to the first Borg ships that you met, you seem to be more prepared to handle the Borg than anyone or anything else that I've ever heard of.' She was completely serious. Even the species that lived in subspace wasn't able to do that much damage to Borg forces, and certainly not without taking some damage of their own in return. They were, however, still holding their own against the Borg in their war in subspace.

Kahmmhi smiled. 'We do try to be prepared for any contingency. And, unlike the Borg, who have never heard of us and know nothing about us, our culture, or our technology, we have heard of the Borg, we know about their capabilities, and we've had years to plan out tactics that we have designed specifically to deal with them.' She didn't even add that they had done their best to make sure that they designed those tactics specifically to screw with the Borg and make sure that they couldn't possibly collect enough data to gain any real insight as to how to negate the effectiveness of any attack that the Clan used on them.

Janeway nodded, realizing that the Clan was really as aggressive as they had seemed in the records that they had given to her to show what they had been doing in the Alpha quadrant. 'Yes, I'm sure that helped, though from what I've seen so far, you didn't need very long to come up with ways to overcome the Borg so that they couldn't possibly keep your attacks from being completely successful.'

'If they return, they'll find even more surprises waiting for them.' Kahmmhi wasn't about to tell Janeway that she already had several other attacks planned, and that each of them was very carefully calculated to intimidate and destroy the Borg while giving them little or no information about how the attack had been done. Their natural desire to "assimilate" anything that was obviously superior to their own technology was the best carrot that she could possibly give them. And every time that they showed up, she intended to use a different stick so that they didn't have any chance to prepare for the next attack before it came. Her grandfather and his Shadows had pounded that lesson into her long before she had ever entered Basic. This was going to be a very steep learning curve, and the Borg were definitely going to pay a high price for every little thing that they did manage to learn about the Clans, their weapons, their tactics, and their technology.

They began going over the specifications and blueprints for Janeway's ship, modifying the standard design for the Voyager class to reflect the modifications that had been made to Voyager by her crew since their arrival in the Delta quadrant. After several days of this, the rest of the scout claw arrived in the system. Kahmmhi was relieved by their arrival, since she had been worried about being separated from them. She wasn't really that worried about them running into some alien force that they couldn't deal with on their own, but there was always the chance, and the Clan never underestimated the combat capabilities of any potential enemy that they met. She hadn't been in command of this mission when it began, but now it was her responsibility to get this lost branch of her Clan back to the Clan, and their lives were part of that responsibility.

Once they were all inside the system, Kahmmhi had Virginia manufacture some remote sensors that were linked to beacons similar to their normal comsats. She had a number of PT boat claws launched, and each one was to take their sensors out and put them in place in a large, loose sphere around the system so that they would have an early warning network to detect any ships that were traveling in warp. Once the sensors detected something, they would send the signal to the fleet using the hyper comm relays, and the Clan would have early warning of any approaching forces before they even arrived, even while they were still in warp. The system was simple, and it only really gave them basic information about the forces that were detected, but Kahmmhi could live with that limitation.

Janeway and Kahmmhi both spent a lot of time together, going over the modifications that they were trying to work out with both Clan experts and StarFleet personnel. Some of the meetings were intense as they discussed ways to get as much performance, strength, and safety as possible out of the systems that they had to work with. There were several limitations that had to be taken into account, and they made some of the meetings and the compromises that were reached very unique and interesting.

First, they had to work with the limited resources that the Clan had available. They didn't have their shipyards with them, and they weren't going to build one. Second, the Clan had limitations on what they were willing to do, and what technology they were willing to give to Voyager. There were some substances that the Clan used in their normal construction that weren't available to the Federation or their allies, even with the synthesizers that the Clan had given to them, and Voyager had even more limited resources and capabilities available at the present time, since they had no way to get any supplies from the Federation or the Alpha quadrant.

The Clan spent a lot of time learning what was available to work with, and their experts spent a lot of time and energy going over details of how Voyager had managed to develop their own gravitic engines and cloaking for their ship. After about a week of studies, they finally agreed on a preliminary plan of action and had some idea of what was going to be done to upgrade Voyager. Kahmmhi and Janeway called a meeting of Janeway's staff and Kahmmhi's technicians to go over the plan with them.

Janeway looked around the table. She knew all of the people in the room, though most of the Clan experts had only met with her briefly for a few meetings. Mena handled armoring, and was the one who had worked out the way to improve Voyager's hull armor, as well as that of all of the shuttles that were on board. Jay was in charge of weapons systems, and had come up with the plan for improving Voyager's combat capabilities by putting in Clan lasers and their own independent power sources. Julie's specialty was propulsion systems, and she had worked out the details that would allow them to put gravitic drives into Voyager in place of their current impulse engines. That would allow Voyager to travel even faster outside of warp while still retaining all of their warp capabilities. It would also allow Voyager to use the gravitic engines to operate inside hyper. Lori was an expert on stealth systems for both ships and armored individuals, and she had worked with B'elana to improve their current cloaking systems as much as possible. Kehhn was a construction engineer, and he had come up with the necessary modifications that would allow all of the other systems to be added to Voyager without stripping the ship down and rebuilding it almost from scratch.

'OK. Who wants to go first?'

Kehhn smiled. 'I worked with several different people, and we went over all of the schematics and structural analyses that we could for your ship, using the standard for the ship's class according to the data that we got from StarFleet when we were in the Alpha quadrant whenever we didn't have exact specifications or details. It will take some time, but we can reinforce your existing structural components, replace a few key components with certain reworked materials, and increase your structural integrity significantly. We won't be using materials that the Alliance doesn't have the ability to make themselves, but some of the stuff that we're going to do will probably exceed anything that they're willing to do simply because of the time and energy that is required to manufacture it by their methods, even using our synthesizers.'

B'elana nodded. 'We still recommend using our current structural integrity fields to boost the integrity after the modifications are completed. It's probably not necessary, but until we know better, it's a good safety measure.'

Janeway nodded. With their recent ability to acquire vast amounts of antimatter, they definitely had the power reserves, and it would be extremely unwise of her not to use at least some of them on such an important safety measure, necessary or not. 'And how long will all of that take to complete?'

'Three months. We have to move throughout the entire ship and replace certain sections of some of your key structural supports, and make sure that other sections are clad with better materials. They will be bonded to the duranium and other materials using molecular bonds, so they won't fail or come apart.'

'So we wait three months for that to be completed, and then we can start working on the other stuff?'

B'elana shook her head. 'Not exactly. We have to pull our impulse engines out and replace them with gravitic engines before we can reinforce the entire engineering section and the surrounding areas properly. And we can armor and upgrade all of our small craft at the same time that we are doing that as well. That will probably be done in a bay on board Kahmmhi's ship, since it's their biggest ship and has the most room in its landing bays.'

Janeway nodded, accepting B'elana's statement without any reservations. 'Is there anything else that can be done at the same time?'

Seven cleared her throat. 'We can put in some of the components for the weapons systems that the Clan uses, but certain parts, especially the lasers themselves, will have to be put in after the hull is armored and we're ready to finish things up completely.'

'OK. What comes after the structural integrity?'

'Armoring your hull, completing the weapons systems, and upgrading your emitters for both shields and stealth.'

'You mean cloaking?'

Lori shook her head, smiling broadly. 'No, I mean stealth. It's very primitive stealth by Clan standards, but the systems that are currently being used by your cloaking device have been modified to include more spectra, amplified to improve their efficiency and reduce their energy signatures, and with the reduced energy signature that your ship will have because of increased efficiency in other systems and the increased mass and properties of your new hull armor hiding many of your energy signatures, it will actually classify as a stealth system.'

Janeway looked at Kahmmhi. 'I thought that you weren't going to share certain technologies with us.'

'We aren't. Our stealth systems are integral to our ships, and rely on both our armor and our shields, as well as certain other characteristics, to create the stealth effect. This is actually based on your technology. Yes, we helped you tweak your systems to improve their efficiency. Using your systems, while still modifying them based on our understanding of technology, will increase your power output and improve your energy utilization at the same time. But the components and the basic foundation of the systems that you're using were still designed and developed by your people using your technology.'

'If that's so, what exactly are you doing to really improve things?' Janeway knew that the question sounded wrong the way that she had said it, but Kahmmhi would take it as she'd intended, and give her more details.

Instead of Kahmmhi, Lori answered. 'Our emitters work differently, and we're using emitters that are based on our designs, but made out of your materials, to generate your stealth field. They'll be incorporated into the hull armor, exactly like our own emitters normally are, and will be supplemented by shield emitters to give your ship a much better energy shield than it is currently capable of producing.'

'How much better?'

Lori punched some numbers into her comp, then showed the results to B'elana. B'elana's eyes widened with surprise, but she nodded. 'More than an order of magnitude stronger, Captain. Twenty times your current shield strength.'

Janeway nodded. 'OK. We're going to have better armor, better weapons, better shields, better cloaking or stealth, and better energy utilization curves. I understand the need for most of the things that we're doing to the ship, but I'm still uncertain as to why you insisted that we replace the impulse engines, B'elana. That is the most labor intensive part of the modifications, and it will take a lot of resources and energy to accomplish. What is so important about doing that?'

'I agree that the fuel savings and other factors aren't as important as they would be otherwise, Captain. And the difference in speed isn't all that important under most conditions. But there were several factors that made it very important to replace the impulse engines with gravitic engines.'

'Such as? Come on, B'elana, you can be more specific than that.'

B'elana smiled. 'Well, for one thing, the gravitic drives that the Clan uses are much smaller than our impulse engines, and they don't require any fuel. The additional space that we gain will allow us to put in even more power generators, allowing us to provide separate generators for life support, inertial compensators, and shields. The efficiency is over ninety percent, so we'll have more than enough power, even if one or two of the generators fails.'

Chakotay looked impressed. 'That will give us more than enough power to spare for dealing with any type of foreseeable emergency, including combat damage.'

'The major reason that I insisted upon the gravitic engines is that it will allow us to negate the Borg's ability to use tractor beams on our ship.'

'What do you mean?'

'As long as our inertial dampeners and structural integrity fields can withstand the stress, all we have to do is reverse polarity on the gravitic engines and the tractor beam won't work. Theoretically, if your structural integrity and inertial compensators were strong enough, you could explore black holes without being sucked into the event horizon. For our purposes, reversing the polarity would act like thrusters and move us out of range of their tractor beams. Their ship would be subjected to at least as much of the stresses as our own would.'

Tuvok nodded. 'Very impressive. If we ever have to use that ability, we would still be capable of inflicting damage on the Borg cube with our new lasers while remaining outside of their own weapons and tractor beam range.'

'They'll adapt their shield harmonics so that our lasers don't keep damaging their ship. Exactly the same way that they do with our phasers. Since we can't possibly design a railgun that would fit inside our ship, much less put one into our ship, we can't use kinetic weapons that would overload their shields. We will have to rely on their energy weapons, and those aren't going to be any more effective on the Borg than our own energy weapons are.'

'The lasers are capable of cycling through a variety of frequencies, and they can be programmed to do so independently of each other. Their range is much greater than that of our phasers.'

Chakotay sighed. 'Did we ever determine what the strength and range of our lasers will be?'

Jay nodded. 'We can't give you some of the materials that we use to line the barrels of our lasers, but the best materials that you have available are good enough to work well. They may have to be replaced periodically, or you may have to reline the barrels of the lasers if you use them in combat a lot or use them for sustained laser fire during a particular engagement, but they will function properly. As near as I can determine before actually constructing them and test firing them, your lasers will have a range of three to four million kliks. Their power won't be as great as I had originally hoped. They'll be good enough to hammer a Grak battlecruiser, but only if you get within a range of about one and a half million kliks.'

'How strong is that?' Janeway looked confused, not knowing what power levels that represented.

Seven looked at the numbers and ran the conversions. 'The power level is equivalent to eleven times the full power of a Galaxy class starship's phasers at full power and point blank range.'

Janeway and the others looked stunned. 'What about at distance? How much energy loss is there?'

'That is the power level of your lasers at a distance of one and a half million kliks. The distance that Jay was talking about. At full effective range, the power is only half of that. It drops off from that level at a rate of five percent per one hundred thousand kliks.'

None of the members of Voyager's crew said anything as they tried to process the information. Voyager would be more than ten times as powerful as a Galaxy class starship, have almost ten times the range on its weapons, and would have much stronger shields and armor than any ship that they had ever encountered in combat. The thing that really bothered Janeway was that, as powerful as that would make Voyager, the Clan still considered her ship too small and too weak to be classified as a real warship. She wasn't sure how large their ships were, or how powerful they were, but she did know that they were capable of kicking the shit out of the Borg.

Mena shook her head sadly. 'I can't guarantee that your armor would hold out for very long if you lose your energy shields. We can only get ten meters of armor onto your hull without stressing the compensators that we can build for your ship beyond their safety limits. Lasers as strong as your own would certainly carve your ship up with ease if they got through your shields.'

Janeway shook her head in disbelief. Ten meters of hull armor. No starship in the Federation had more than a few centimeters of hull armor. Well, there was the Defiant, with its ablative quantum armor, but that small ship had been built and designed specifically for combat, and represented the best that the Federation could produce with all of their resource base. It operated on its own in dangerous locations, and they wanted the ship to be able to survive any foreseeable encounters. It was also much smaller than Voyager.

She looked over at Kahmmhi. 'How well will this ship do in combat against something like the ships that you captured for the Federation when you were at DS9?'

'It's small, light, and fast. But those ships have already been upgraded so that they have much better hull armor, more weapons, and they have enough power generators to match your weapons. They can take much more damage. You'd lose.'

'And what about your ships?'

'The lasers on this ship couldn't really damage our smallest ship, even if our shields were down. They aren't going to be strong enough to penetrate the shields on any Clan ship. They could do some damage to our small craft at close range. Probably anything under a million kliks.'

Mena nodded, doing the conversions in her head. 'That sounds about right, Tahr Kahhni.'

Janeway shook her head. This was a lot to take in all at once. And she was beginning to realize that asking any questions that weren't relevant, simply to satisfy her own curiosity, was only making it even more difficult for her to concentrate and focus on the things that were absolutely relevant and necessary. Just thinking about some of the ramifications of how powerful Clan ships were was daunting. 'When do you think we should start?'

'We can have our technicians over here to begin working on the first project within a few hours of the time that you inform me of your decision on what you are willing to have us help you do to improve your ship.'

Janeway looked thoughtful, then nodded. 'Then we're very pleased with your offer of assistance, and I'm willing to allow you and your people total access to my ship so that you can complete all of the projects that we've been discussing. Just let my people know, and we'll be ready to assist you as soon as your crews arrive with their equipment to begin the necessary work.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'I'll inform Virginia, and she'll have the repair crews over here as soon as possible.'

Janeway smiled. 'Now that the official business is over, perhaps Chakotay and I could give you and your Shadows a tour of our ship and show you what we've managed to do to it before we begin altering Voyager beyond anything that StarFleet ever envisioned her becoming.'

Kahmmhi nodded, and she and her Shadows left with Janeway and Chakotay for the tour. She was very interested to see how they had managed on their own. From the Clan's perspective, Voyager was the single most advanced ship that they had encountered since they had been cut off from their Clan. It might be small, and it might be operating with limited resources, but the Federation crew that manned the ship was using their resources much more effectively than any other force that the Clan had encountered here. They were preparing for war, even if they weren't aggressively engaging in warfare, they were using their brains and doing what they could to solve their problems on their own, and they were utilizing everything that they had, or that they could make, in order to achieve their goals. As far as Kahmmhi was concerned, they were doing more to achieve the stated goals and objectives that the Federation had established than the rest of the Federation was.

Virginia smiled as she heard from the last of the units that were out. 'We have our entire net up, and we will have early warning before anyone else hits our outer perimeter. If you want our pickets to do anything to screw with the enemy, just give the word.'

Kahmmhi smiled, but shook her head. 'Oh, no. We've planned things out way too well to start messing with a good thing while it's still working for us. I'm hoping to make the Borg learn their lesson here the hard way.'

'Right. Does Janeway know that she's technically bait for our trap, since her ship is the only thing in the system that the Borg CAN detect, at least somewhat? The plan that we have for upgrading her ship isn't going to change that until the very last, so she's going to be left hanging out in the breeze for about six months.'

'She wasn't worried about the Borg showing up when we came up with the plan, and I did warn her that they could be back. She's confident that even if we can't take them out, her ship can still outrun them in warp, since we're improving the structural integrity of her ship before we do anything else, and nothing that we're doing is actually going to make her ship more vulnerable during the time that it's being upgraded.'

Virginia nodded. She certainly couldn't argue that fact. The first set of upgrades would increase the structural integrity of the interior of the ship, as well as replacing their impulse engines with gravitic drives. Then they'd do the real work of armoring the hull and improving their weapons and stealth capabilities over the current cloaking capabilities that they had developed for themselves. Very resourceful crew in her opinion. They were certainly showing much better survival traits than anyone that they'd met while they were at DS9. Well, anyone in real authority. Sisko and some of his crew were very resourceful, and they definitely showed survival skills.

'Let me know as soon as we have any warning about anything approaching the system. I'm not sure if the Borg will send in a scout or a probe, or just try to come in force and see if they can take out everything before we take them out.'

'Roger. You'll be the second one to know.'

The hive queen was surprised at how quickly the Collective was responding to this new acquisition. She had been informed that there would be another force arriving in the system that she was in within a week. They would rendezvous, communicate with her to gain all of the knowledge that she had, and then the hive queen in charge of that force would lead the force and assimilate whoever it was that was using this amazing new technological capability. What really surprised her even more than how quickly the second response force had been brought together and sent to this location was the fact that it consisted of three scout spheres, four cubes, and two planetary assimilation spheres. This was more force than was usually required to assimilate an entire system that had highly advanced technology.

The hive queen acknowledged her new orders, satisfied with the situation. Nothing in the universe could possibly stand up to a force of such magnitude and strength, and the Collective would soon possess this new technology and the capabilities that it could provide to them.

Janeway was watching all of the construction that was happening on her ship, and was amazed at how quickly and easily the Clan managed to do things to her ship that would normally require a StarFleet dry dock at least. And some of the things that they were able to do just didn't seem possible. She asked, but B'elana and Seven didn't even understand exactly how some of the Clan technology worked, and the Clan didn't seem to be willing to give them complete courses so that they could learn about it. They were going to be able to use the Alliance technology to maintain and replicate the results of what was done to upgrade this ship, but not necessarily by the same methods as the Clan used. It could be done. Just not as quickly, not as easily, and not as efficiently.

The work on improving internal structural integrity was proceeding smoothly. The work on removing their impulse engines was going much more rapidly than expected. They had discovered that Clan members were much stronger than they looked, and some things that would take a long time and a lot of heavy equipment for Federation personnel to do required a short amount of time and two or three large Clan males to accomplish. She didn't even want to think about how much effort it would take to install the Clan gravitic engines if they didn't have Clan personnel bringing in the parts and assembling them. Some of the parts weighed tons, yet two Clan males were capable of carrying them easily. She wasn't sure what kind of power assists they were using on the armor that the Clan members wore, but if StarFleet could duplicate that, they would definitely be able to improve a lot of things for the Federation and their newfound allies.

They were in the middle of installing the second gravitic engine when Janeway received an urgent call from Kahmmhi. She answered the call immediately.

'Yes, Kahmmhi. You said that there is an emergency?'

'Borg are approaching the system.'

'We haven't detected anything yet, and our long range sensors are very good. We've modified them specifically to detect Borg ships at great distances.'

'Yes, well, we have a series of passive sensors arrayed around this system. Our pickets are at the edge of the system, and the sensors were put out as two overlapping spheres beyond their positions. A number of Borg ships have passed the first line of sensors, and are currently approaching the second set. They should be in the system within about half an hour at their current speed.'

Janeway nodded, ordering Tuvok to sound a yellow alert for the entire ship. 'We'll be as ready as we can be. Hopefully they won't be able to find us.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'The last group had trouble pinpointing your exact location, but they could detect your ship well enough to locate the general area that you were in. There is no reason to assume that this force won't have the same abilities.'

'Then what do you suggest?'

'If they start to home in on your position, we will eliminate them.'

'They may have figured out a way to neutralize your attack.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'I doubt that they got enough data from their scans to even determine exactly what our first attack WAS, much less figure out how it worked and how to counter it. But that's not really important. This force is much larger, so we're going to respond with a different type of attack.'

'You can tell how large the force is already?'

'Of course. There are three of the spheres like the one that was here before, four of the cubes, and two much larger spheres. The sphere that was here before is also with them, but it isn't in formation with the rest of them. It seems to be following them. We don't know if it's there to observe, to direct the rest of the force, or just there to collect information on our attacks, just in case our next attack is also successful in preventing them from assimilating our technology.'

Janeway looked at Tuvok, but he just shook his head. She sighed. 'We don't know enough about the Borg to answer the question any better than you can. Sorry, Kahmmhi, but without knowing what the Borg are after, your guess is about as good as our own.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Don't worry. We've taken the necessary precautions to make sure that our next attack will be just as sudden and just as effective as the previous attack. I'm sure that if the Borg try to assimilate you, we'll be able to convince them that you're not what they want to be bothering.'

Janeway nodded, feeling like she had just missed something important, but she wasn't able to figure out what it was. They'd definitely know what was going to happen once the Borg got here. She had less than half an hour to wait.

Kahmmhi looked over at Virginia. 'Are we in position?'

'Yes. Right behind Voyager. Just off of her stern, and shifted enough to allow our main railguns to fire without hitting them. Are you sure that you want to do this particular tactic?'

Kahmmhi smiled coldly. 'Oh, yeah. Definitely.'

'Janeway might appreciate knowing what you're planning on doing before you actually do it, you know.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'What Janeway doesn't know won't hurt her. Besides, if the Borg think that Voyager is the ship that's doing all of this to them, and that Voyager is capable of doing these attacks on their own, they'll leave Voyager alone if they can't return to the Alpha quadrant through hyper.'

'Or they'll think that Voyager must be assimilated at all costs. If it's that much of a threat to them, the only way they can keep the entire Alpha quadrant from gaining this new technology is to assimilate Voyager and acquire it for themselves.'

'Well, they COULD try to destroy it themselves, if they get desperate, but I agree that they WILL try to assimilate it if they think that is at all possible. That does seem to be their primary method of acquiring new, improved technology that will make them stronger and improve their chances of survival. Kind of like the Consortium, in a way.'

Virginia threw up her hands and gave up. 'Just don't blame me when Janeway figures out what you've been doing and freaks out. If she wants to bitch about our tactics, I'm forwarding all of her calls directly to you.'

'I wouldn't have it any other way, Ginny.'

'Kraghlar smug brat. Your sense of humor is as warped and twisted as your bloody grandfather's.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. She wouldn't argue the point. Her mother had said the same thing to her more than once, especially when she was training her how to do diplomatic relations with alien cultures. At least Virginia couldn't say that any of HER Shadows were deviants like Lehr. Even Kahmmhi couldn't understand how her grandfather had put up with him for so long. Yes, she'd found his antics extremely amusing as a child, but as she got older and had to assume more responsibilities, she couldn't help feeling exactly like most of Troy's wives did. Lehr was generally a major pain in the ass. Of course, the Graks thought that more than anyone else in the known universe, so that WAS a point in his favor.

'Just let me know as soon as they get here. We'll see if they're going to stick to the script or try to improvise. Just make sure that the ready talons are ready to launch, just in case they try to do anything unexpected.'

'Yes, Tahr Kahhni.'

Kahmmhi rolled her eyes as Krohn snickered at Virginia's tone. 'Next she'll be telling her grandmother how to suck eggs.'

Kahmmhi turned to stare at him. 'Where in the HELL do you learn some of those phrases that make absolutely no sense to anyone?'

Krohn smiled. 'Spend too much time around Troy in combat, and you'll learn a lot of things that will eventually begin to make sense to you, Tahr Kahhni.'

'No, thanks, Krohn. My idea of improvising and his idea of improvising are universes apart.'

'If you say so, Tahr Kahhni.' Krohn smiled smugly, and the other Shadows snickered. Kahmmhi let it slide and decided to cut her losses. She had a battle to prepare herself for mentally, and she needed to relax so that she could think straight and make the right decisions in a split second if that became necessary. The first rule of surviving was to keep the learning curve so steep that the enemy paid the maximum price for everything that they learned. The closer she could keep it to a vertical line, the better. So far, the Borg were almost on a vertical line when it came to dealing with the Clan in combat. When they did learn more, she intended for the lesson to be that they had their primary belief backwards. As far as the Clan was concerned, it wasn't resistance that was futile when they were dealing with the Borg. They just needed to convince the Borg of that fact.

When the Borg fleet entered the system, the hive queen was surprised to discover that nothing had changed at all. Their readings still indicated that whatever ship had been detected during the previous encounter was still in the system, and it was still at approximately the same location that it had been in before. It made no sense at all that the ship hadn't moved or done anything to try to hide itself from their sensors since the last fleet had left the system. They must really believe that their weapons were vastly superior to anything that the Borg possessed to behave as if they had nothing at all to fear from the Borg.

During their last encounter, the Borg had tried approaching the enemy ship's position from three angles, and had been destroyed by three explosions that had gone off simultaneously. Each explosion had been of such great magnitude that it had totally obliterated the cube that it had struck. She intended to keep her ships spaced far enough away from each other that they couldn't be caught in a single explosion, but near enough that they could support each other and fire upon the enemy ship as soon as it revealed its position.

As they approached the position of the enemy ship, the hive queen began broadcasting the standard challenge to all alien species that the Borg encountered. If they were worthy of notice, they were to be assimilated. This species possessed unique technology and capabilities, and those capabilities had been judged to be necessary for the safety and the improvement of the Collective. Therefore they would be assimilated.

'We are Borg. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilated.'

Janeway looked at Tuvok, then turned and looked over at Chakotay. 'Suggestions?'

'I would recommend that we do nothing, captain. Kahmmhi has said that she would handle the Borg, and past experience has shown her to be quite capable of doing something like that. Perhaps we could find out more about their tactics and technology by simply observing and recording everything that we can. It could help us to learn more about how they think and respond.'

Chakotay nodded. 'I think that he has a point. Besides, we know that there is no way that we're going to do much against a force that large with our weapons.'

Tuvok nodded. 'There are three scout spheres, four cubes, and two planetary assimilation spheres in the Borg formation that is approaching our position. The center scout sphere was the source of the Borg hail when they challenged us. There is another scout sphere, but it is remaining near the edge of the system, and appears to simply be observing.'

Janeway nodded. 'Eyes and ears. It seems that the Borg did learn something from their last encounter in this system, and they want to make sure that they learn as much as possible this time as well. Just in case things don't go the way that they want them to.'

Tuvok nodded, then turned his attention back to his station and began increasing the sensitivity settings on all of their passive scans so that they could learn as much as possible from this attack. They were eager to gather as much data about the Clan, their weapons, and their tactics as they could.

Janeway sighed, then contacted B'elana. 'Engineering, be prepared to go to emergency warp on my command.'

'Sir, if we do that, our cloaking won't hold. We could even blow some of our emitters if they're active during a maneuver of that type.'

'I'm aware of that, B'elana. I won't order emergency warp unless I have no other choice, but I'm covering all of my bases and making sure that I have options. The Clan may have been able to handle several Borg cubes when they caught them totally by surprise, but they won't have that luxury this time, and there are three scout spheres, four cubes, and two planetary assimilation spheres here.'

'I'll make sure that we're ready to run for our lives if we have to, captain.'

Khrrynha shook her head, smiling as she looked at the rest of her work group. 'They think that we can't handle some small craft. They only sent nine ships.'

The others chuckled. B'elana heard them talking and laughing as if nothing were wrong, then gave them a strange look. 'Why in the world are you guys just laughing and going about your work as if nothing is wrong? There is a large Borg task force in the system, and they have enough firepower in that single fleet to take out the entire Federation.'

Khrrynha chuckled. 'They only sent nine ships. We have nine ships in the system. And none of their ships is very large, unless they sent ships that were much larger than the ones they sent the last time.'

'Two of them are much larger, but they sent more spheres and more cubes than they did the last time as well.'

Brian shook his head. 'That is barely a force. Even small picket fleets have ten battleships and about fifty battlecruisers, along with some smaller ships. A Consortium battlecruiser is larger than the cubes that we destroyed the last time that the Borg were inside this system.'

B'elana stared at him, trying to decide how to react and how to get more information out of them. Before she could ask him anything, they had turned back to their equipment and resumed working on installing the second of the gravitic engines and completing all of its controls. Her only consolation was that if the warp engines failed for any reason, they'd at least be able to flee at better than full impulse power. Not that doing that would give them much longer to live before the Borg either destroyed or assimilated their ship.

Kahmmhi looked at Virginia. 'What's the best distance for the shot?'

'Our railguns are going to launch at zero point two five c, zero point two c, and zero point one five c respectively. That gives us real time closure on the targets of seventy five thousand kliks per second for our fastest rounds, sixty thousand for our medium speed rounds, and forty five thousand for our slowest rounds. If we wait until they're a hundred and fifty thousand kliks out, they'll have two seconds to respond before the fastest rounds of the first salvo hits them.' She grinned. 'I'm not bothering to deduct the actual travel time for the light to reach them and let them see that something just fired.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'They will be able to use their own weapons and fire blindly at Voyager's position if we let them get that close. How much dispersal will we get if we fire at twice that range?'

Virginia looked at the formation that the Borg ships were in, ran the calculations on her comp, then smiled. 'They should catch well over half of our salvo. The accuracy at that distance wouldn't be so bad, but we are talking about hitting small targets, and our accuracy is diminished somewhat because we have to allow our shots to spread if we're going to hit all of the targets at the same time.'

'That will have to do. First salvo from all three types of railguns is canisters of AM. Reload immediately so that the medium railguns are loaded with more AM canisters, the large railguns are loaded with kinetic penetrators, and the kinetic strike railguns are loaded with solid slug canisters.' She smiled grimly. 'If I have to fire a second salvo to convince those bastards that we're not playing, I'm going to show them what a freaking shotgun is.'

Virginia nodded and issued the necessary orders. At the current rate of closure, they had about five minutes before they'd launch their attack.

The hive queen was puzzled. There was still no response from whatever ship was inside this system. Not responding the first time that they were challenged by the Borg was prudent, giving the enemy the element of total surprise, since they couldn't know that the Borg couldn't detect their ship well enough to pinpoint its location well enough to launch at attack while they were still at long range.

Refusing to answer this time was curious, though. They knew that the Borg were now certain that they were in the system, and they could tell from the continued approach of her ships that the Borg could detect them and determine their approximate location. They had to know that not answering the Borg hail couldn't change things in their favor. They would still be assimilated. Their knowledge and their technology would be added to the Borg collective, along with as many of their species as it took to get enough drones to understand how to use that new technology properly.

Perhaps this was Voyager, as the other hive queen had surmised, and Janeway was trying to keep the Borg from discovering that her people were the ones who had developed this unique and advanced technology that was so important to the Collective. As she considered this possibility, she ran the statistics, and the probability was higher than for any of the other possibilities that she could calculate accurately. She would find out soon enough. Soon they would come into weapons range, and they would begin firing to locate the hidden ship so that they could lock their tractor beams onto it and pull it into one of the planetary assimilation spheres.

Virginia waited patiently as she and Kahmmhi watched the monitors. Almost. The Borg ships crossed the line on their monitors, and Kahmmhi nodded.

'Fire in the hole.'

They felt the cycle of the first salvo going out as the PUFF's six medium kinetic strike railguns, twelve large main railguns, and twenty four medium main railguns of the front main battery all fired simultaneously.

'Five seconds until we know the results of the first salvo. That's when we'll see what the kinetic strike railguns did to them. Six seconds for the main, and nine for the mediums.'

Kahmmhi grinned. 'Gotta love instant gratification. We'll just have time to see what happened and tally up the damage before we'll know if we need to launch anything from the second salvo.'

Virginia nodded. A few seconds would be all that they'd have to wait.

Tuvok literally jumped as every alarm on his boards went off at once, including the collision alarms. Janeway looked over at him, fear and concern evident on her face.

'Report.'

'We just recorded a very large electromagnetic pulse, captain. It appears to have originated from just behind our ship. The collision alarms were because some large, solid masses just went past our ship at great speed. I'm reading zero point two five c for the fastest objects, and zero point one five c for the slowest.'

'What were they?'

'I am currently unable to determine that, captain. Nothing is currently showing on my sensors.'

Janeway looked at Chakotay, but he had no suggestions either. She was about to ask Tuvok something else when a series of bright flashes similar to warp core breaches began appearing on her screen.

'Captain, there are numerous very large, powerful explosions occurring in the vicinity of the Borg ships.'

The hive queen couldn't keep up with the reports of damage and requests for instructions that she was receiving. There was simply a sudden burst of activity throughout the fleet, and every ship was reporting damage, asking for directions, and trying to figure out what had attacked them. And how. Nobody seemed to have any idea as to how the attack had occurred.

A quick review showed that nothing was on their sensors. They had detected a large burst of electromagnetic energy near the position of their prey, but nothing since then, and nothing had appeared on their sensors. The damage was severe on two spheres and one cube, and significant on all of the other ships. She would have to order the fleet to increase speed, close on their target, and initiate the attack before their target could launch another such attack.

Before she could do that, alarms began going off throughout the fleet once again, and even more damage was occurring to all of the ships. Within seconds, one sphere and one cube had vanished from her screen, totally destroyed by whatever weapon this was. Both planetary assimilation spheres were taking significant damage, and the smaller ships were not faring well, either.

She sent immediate orders to turn the spheres and cubes to face their strongest remaining side toward the enemy, but before any of the drones could carry out her orders, there were more alarms and more explosions. The hive queen was in the middle of issuing a distress beacon when her planetary assimilation sphere simply blew up in a vast matter-antimatter reaction.

Kahmmhi looked at the results of their first attack. Two spheres were damaged, and one was destroyed. Three cubes were heavily damaged, and one was totally destroyed. One planetary assimilation sphere was gone, and the other was damaged.

'Target the big sucker and launch a salvo from the kinetic strike railguns. Let's see how they like dealing with pure kinetics on THAT scale.'

Virginia nodded, and ordered the launch. 'Confirmed. Any other orders?'

Kahmmhi smiled grimly. 'Give me five seconds, and I'll let you know.'

Tuvok stared at his sensor readings in amazement. There was something traveling at zero point two five c, heading directly for the remaining Borg planetary assimilation sphere. It was something solid, and the mass was so great that he couldn't imagine how dense the material must be, and without more information, he wasn't about to try to do the calculations.

'Captain, solid projectiles just went past us at zero point two five c. Same point of origin as the first projectiles. This time I am able to detect something. There are a number of solid projectiles with limited spread from their initial line of travel. Their mass is very high, captain.'

Janeway stared at Chakotay. 'Solid projectiles? Against energy shields?'

Tuvok looked at the mass readings and the speed, and quickly did the calculations in his head. 'Um, captain, at such a high speed, and with such high mass, the projectiles should have sufficient kinetic energy to...'

There was a huge flash on their main viewscreen, so bright that all of them had to cover their eyes. When they could see again, there was no sign of the Borg planetary assimilation sphere. It had been completely destroyed.

The hive queen ordered the remaining ships to retreat to her current position. They did so with no objections at all. None of the ships was ready to engage in combat right now. The nanobots that repaired damage to their ships automatically were working overtime just to seal the hull breaches and repair the ships well enough to let them go to warp speed without being destroyed by the resultant loss of structural integrity. There had been so much damage to the ships that even their structural integrity fields couldn't handle it until the hull repairs were completed.

The hive queen examined the remaining data that had been acquired during the attack. The enemy ship had fired on them with some type of immensely powerful weapon. The first attack had been untraceable, but the second attack had used materials that they could track. There was some type of electromagnetic pulse, and then projectiles had been launched at great speed. This was very impressive, and the technology would give the Borg collective much more of an advantage in their war against the tenacious species that lived in subspace. They were a constant source of problems, but with this type of power and technology, they could be assimilated and added to the collective. Or they could be eradicated like the vermin and pests that they truly were.

Now the hive queen had two conflicting problems. This technology was unique, useful, and very valuable, and it would provide many benefits to the Borg collective. It MUST be assimilated. However, the species that was in possession of this technology was being exceptionally uncooperative, and was proving to be very difficult to overcome so that it could be assimilated. The very technology that made it such a prime target for assimilation was also making it very deadly and dangerous, and even more difficult for the Collective TO assimilate. The hive queen contacted the Collective to give her report.

'First attempt to assimilate the unknown species with unique technology failed. Second attempt at assimilation also failed. Two planetary assimilation spheres destroyed, one cube destroyed, one scout sphere destroyed. Two scout spheres damaged, three cubes sustained damage. Repairs currently in progress. Weapons used were completely different than those used to defend against first attack. New weapon is some sort of projectile weapon of immense power that uses kinetic energy to overwhelm our shields.'

'This is impossible. No projectile could possibly be capable of overwhelming the shields of a planetary assimilation sphere. The amount of energy required for that would be...'

'The projectiles are solid, have a very high mass, and are being moved through real space at zero point two five c.'

The Collective debated on that for a minute before reaching consensus. 'This species is very dangerous, and must be eliminated or neutralized. Assimilation of their technology is imperative for the continued security of the entire Collective.'

'We concur. But we lack sufficient forces here to accomplish that goal. Half of the last force that tried to assimilate them was totally destroyed, and the remaining ships are both small and damaged. Repairs are currently under way, but it will take weeks for the repairs to be completed.'

The Collective discussed this, then the Hive Queen from the Borg home world spoke. 'More forces must be dispatched. And even more forces than that must be mobilized, just in case this next attack doesn't work, either. We MUST assimilate this new threat before it threatens our perfection.'

None of the other hive queens dared to argue with her conclusion, though they were divided on how best to respond to this current threat to the entire Collective. In the end, they determined that another force, larger and more powerful than the last one, would be dispatched to the region to assimilate the enemy. While they were on their way, even more forces would be shifted into this region to make sure that the enemy didn't become a threat to the Collective itself. It would take another four weeks before they could reach the region, and that was with them traveling most of the way by the fastest transwarp routes possible. The larger forces that were being moved to reinforce them, if necessary, would require several additional weeks to reach the region and form a single force that was ready to attack the unknown species that they were trying to assimilate.

The hive queen signaled her assent, and accepted her orders to wait, watch, and collect as much information as possible about the unknown enemy while the Borg fleet was coming to her current position. She also intended to analyze every detail of both attacks as thoroughly as possible, hoping to gain some insight into how the enemy was able to do the seemingly impossible feats that they were accomplishing against the Borg forces. So far, the enemy was not reacting like any species that they had ever encountered.

'The Borg forces are retreating from the system, captain. I am reading significant damage to two of the remaining scout spheres and three of the remaining cubes. Both of the planetary assimilation spheres have been destroyed. I can detect no life signs, and very little debris remains of either ship.'

'Analysis of the attack, Mr. Tuvok.'

'There were several launches from right behind our position, captain. Evidently, they were remaining near us to make sure that the Borg didn't come closer than a minimum distance from our position. There was some type of very strong electromagnetic pulse, and projectiles were launched at a very high velocity.'

Chakotay nodded. 'Railguns. We have the technology to make and use them, but they're not effective enough for combat, so we never really developed them.'

'Evidently the Clan seems to have found a way to overcome whatever limitations we have with such technology. They definitely have figured out how to propel their projectiles at significant velocities, and they are clearly capable of totally overwhelming the shields and structural integrity of the Borg ships.'

Janeway nodded. 'So far, the Borg have been able to detect our general location, but they haven't been able to pinpoint our position. What do you make of the encounters inside this system so far, Mr. Tuvok?'

Tuvok paused, then began studying the records of the first encounter and the recent encounter. 'I believe that I am seeing something which may indicate a pattern, captain. I would like a few hours to go over all of the data with Seven to confirm this, and then I will be ready to present my findings.'

Janeway nodded. 'Very well, Mr. Tuvok. We'll hold a staff meeting to go over your findings in three hours. Is that sufficient time?'

'I believe so, captain.'

Tuvok left the bridge to find Seven. Chakotay turned to Janeway. 'Captain, you suspect something?'

'It's just a hunch right now, Chakotay. While I'm very happy that we've come out of our recent encounters with the Borg so cleanly, I'm still not convinced that everything is as nice, neat, and orderly as Kahmmhi would have us believe. She was hunting the Borg, and I'm beginning to think that she could have easily destroyed both forces completely before they could ever get off a warning.'

'If she could, what would the significance of that be?'

'It's possible that she's baiting them so that they send more and more forces here. That way she can destroy more of their combat capabilities without really risking any of her own forces in open confrontation. The Clan has proven that they are very accomplished at ambush tactics, and the records that we have of their actions at DS9 prove that out as well. She's already admitted that they lack anything resembling warp travel, so I'm thinking that they can't travel that fast between systems unless they can find a hyper stream. They can attack the Borg when they can get them into the same system, but they can't chase them if they run from the system and try to enter a transwarp conduit or go to warp.'

Chakotay nodded, thinking about that possibility. If that was true, then the Clan would have very good reasons to stay in this system and bait the Borg to draw more of their forces into the system. For their sake, he hoped that they weren't doing that, because if they were using Voyager as bait, Janeway was going to skin Kahmmhi alive.

After several hours, which most of them used to relax and get things back to normal, as well as to grab a quick meal, just in case the Borg returned to the system unexpectedly, Janeway met with her staff.

'You have the results of the analyses that I asked for, Mr. Tuvok?'

'I do, captain. You were correct in your assumptions. Analysis of the data indicates that the Clan response to both attacks was clearly made to look as if Voyager was the source of the counterattack on the Borg forces in the system. The Borg can't detect the Clan ships, and the only ship that they know of in the system is Voyager. If they are analyzing their sensor logs, they have determined that there is a single ship in this system, and that we have caused all of the damage to both forces that have attempted to assimilate this ship.'

Janeway nodded, then contacted the bridge. 'Connect me with Kahmmhi right away.'

Virginia looked at her comm officer, surprised by her response to the hail from the Federation vessel. 'What's wrong?'

'We have a demand to speak with Kahmmhi immediately, sir.'

Virginia smiled, realizing that Janeway had figured something out, and now she was pissed. That was evident from the way that she was making demands to speak with Kahmmhi immediately. 'Contact Kahmmhi and let her know.'

The comm officer did so, and then transferred the call. Virginia smiled when she heard that Kahmmhi was already working out. The encounter with the Borg hadn't ended that long ago, so if she was already working out, she was definitely working off stress. If Janeway was pissed about something and demanding to talk to Kahmmhi about it immediately, it was definitely going to be the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Captain Janeway, what can I do for you?'

'For starters, you can quit playing innocent and helpful and tell me why the hell you are using my ship as bait. What the hell do you think gives you the right to risk my ship and the lives of my crew to draw the Borg into this system so that you can ambush them?'

Janeway watched her viewscreen, and Kahmmhi just smiled and looked even more relaxed. For some reason, that response just made Janeway even more pissed at her.

'Well, captain, I would be very pleased to come over to your ship and discuss this with you in person, since it seems that you are somewhat worked up about this. I really do believe that this would be much better worked out in person, so that we can actually communicate face to face.'

'Very well. How soon can you be here?'

Kahmmhi looked over at her Shadows, then looked back at the screen. 'We can be there in half an hour, captain.'

'I'll meet you at the airlock.' Janeway hit the disconnect, not even caring that she had terminated their communication so curtly. She pressed the button for her comm. 'Chakotay, have everyone ready for another staff meeting in half an hour. And meet me at the airlock in twenty minutes. We're about to have another visit from Kahmmhi. I intend to get to the bottom of this situation. She's going to come clean about what's going on with the Borg in this system, one way or another.'

Janeway had calmed down somewhat by the time that Kahmmhi arrived, but she was still highly agitated about the overall situation. She had just gotten her reactions under control. Kahmmhi greeted her cordially, and then followed her to the meeting room. She didn't seem to be surprised at all to see Janeway's entire staff waiting for them.

'So, I take it that you're wanting some answers to some questions that you have.'

Janeway nodded curtly. 'That's one way of putting it.'

'Well, we'll do what we can to help.'

'The Borg are coming to this system like flies to honey, and I want to know why. What do you know about this situation that you haven't been telling us?'

'From what we know, the Borg are coming to this system because they've been tracking your ship, captain.'

'Voyager? Why would they be tracking Voyager? And how could they possibly be tracking us? Our sensors are more sensitive than theirs, and we haven't been in range to detect any of their ships since we first detected a Borg ship at the extreme limit of our detection several systems ago.'

'The Borg have been following your ship for the very same reason that we were able to initially detect you. You were trying to explore hyperspace, and when you opened the hyperspace portals, they were able to detect the unique signatures of a hyper point opening from very large distances. Your openings were similar to the opening of a wormhole, which the Borg are familiar with.'

Janeway looked at her staff, groaning inwardly as she realized what a discovery like that would mean to the Borg. That someone had found a way to create wormholes artificially. Technology like that would attract the Borg like flies to honey.

'But they haven't been in any of the systems that we were in previously.'

'Were you opening hyper points in every system that you passed through, or did you wait several systems between openings?'

Janeway realized what Kahmmhi was asking. Seven groaned audibly. 'We didn't find any hyper points for the next several systems after the system we left where we initially detected the Borg. It would have taken them time to come to the next system when we opened a hyper portal, and by the time that they arrived, we had already left and they couldn't track us. They had no way of knowing which direction we had gone in.'

Janeway nodded. 'OK. So the Borg have been trailing us to try to assimilate the new technology that we've discovered. They want to add it to their collective, and they think that it's important enough to track us so that they get it as well.'

Chakotay nodded. 'And if they think that Voyager is the ship that has this new technology, they are also very motivated to make sure that we don't take it back to the Alpha quadrant and share it with the Federation.'

'OK. That explains why the Borg are really trying to assimilate my ship and acquire this technology. Anything else we have that they don't already know about would just make them even more determined to assimilate us. But that still doesn't explain your actions. You've been using my ship as bait, and making it look as if all of the attacks that destroyed their ships came from my ship.'

Kahmmhi nodded, smiling calmly. 'Of course. The Borg could already detect YOUR ship, and they knew that you were here in the system. They had no idea that we were even inside the system with you, so we did everything that we could to conceal our presence from them. If our attacks could have only come from additional ships inside the system, their reactions would be much different, and they would be worried about returning to this system to assimilate the technology. As long as they think that there is only one ship in this system, they are much less likely to panic or worry about their losses. They will keep sending forces here, confident in their ability to eventually overwhelm you, assimilate you, and add you to their Collective.'

'You have no right to use my ship as bait.'

'Technically, I'm not really using your ship as bait. The Borg are tracking it on their own, and I'm doing nothing to call attention to your position. In fact, while all of my attacks have been devised to reveal your position to the Borg afterwards, they have been so effective and so devastating that the Borg haven't even had time to learn of your position until afterwards, when there is nothing that they can do to take advantage of that information. We haven't even attacked the Borg until after they have clearly demonstrated that they can detect your ship and they are closing in on your position in an attempt to attack and assimilate your ship and your crew.'

Janeway looked shocked, and so did her crew. Kahmmhi smiled. 'If you're really worried that the Borg pose a significant threat that we can't overcome, I'll be glad to give you and some of your officers a tour of our ship. I'm sure that Virginia wouldn't mind hosting a few guests on the Rolling Thunder. And I'm pretty sure that the Borg won't be back inside the system for some time after what happened to them just a few hours ago. It will take them a considerable amount of time to repair their ships and wait for more reinforcements to arrive.'

'What are you up to, Kahmmhi?'

'To be honest, I'm creating a diversion while we upgrade your ship. I had hoped to find a way to really take the war to the Borg and hit them as hard as we managed to hit the Dominion, but it seems as if we'd have to travel through transwarp conduits in order to reach the locations of the Borg strongholds that are nearest to our current position, and we have no way of knowing how to find any other locations through hyperspace. Which means that all we can do is destroy what forces they send after us. I figure that they'll be willing to send one or two more forces into this system, each larger than the last, before they finally figure out that they're fighting a losing battle and they should just cut their losses.'

'And what happens after that?'

'Well, if your ship is actually hyper capable, we'll lead you back to DS9 so that you can return to the Alpha quadrant much more quickly than you could ever get there by using warp engines. If it's not, we'll have made the Borg wary of coming in this direction, and they'll be even less able to attack your ship than they currently are. Your ship will be faster, stronger, better armored, better armed, and your crew will be much safer during their voyage home.'

Janeway nodded. 'Very well. We'll visit your ship. But if I'm not convinced that you can protect us from the Borg attacks that you seem to think are still imminent, we will leave this system and continue our journey before the Borg can gather enough forces to return to this system. If you're crazy enough to WANT to fight the Borg, then we'll leave you and the Borg to your own little private war.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'That is entirely up to you, captain.' She smiled. 'So, would you care to visit my flagship and see how we live for yourselves?'

'Me?' Janeway looked confused.

'Yes. You, and your staff, if you feel comfortable having all of them off of the ship at the same time.'

Janeway smiled. 'I think that we're safer here, right now, than we would be in Earth orbit. The Borg have been driven from this system. We'd be glad to visit your ship and see how you live. Scientific studies and exploration are the primary missions for my ship, and I'm sure that StarFleet would reprimand me if I passed up the opportunity to learn as much as I could about your technology.'

B'elana smiled eagerly as she realized that Janeway was actually going to go check out the alien ships. 'When can we go?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Any time that your captain wishes. Though I'm sure that she'd like some time to determine exactly what members of her staff that she should bring along with her.'

Chakotay smiled. 'I'll command the ship while you're gone, Captain.'

Janeway nodded. 'Let me see. Tuvok and Seven will be invaluable, I'm sure. The doctor isn't really necessary. I could bring Mr. Paris along, since he does seem to make himself useful in the most unusual situations with all of his extraneous skills.'

B'elana looked exasperated. 'Captain, please. You're toying with me.'

Janeway chuckled. 'Yes, I am. Of course I'll need my chief engineer with me. It's not as if you're going to be required here, since we haven't even really started doing any of the work that requires you to be here yet.'

'Thank you, Captain.' B'elana looked very relieved. Being left behind on the ship for an away mission wasn't generally all that big a deal, but missing out on this chance to actually visit Kahmmhi's ship and see Clan tech for herself? That was a very big deal in her mind. Possibly a once in a lifetime opportunity, especially if the captain actually did leave this system before the Clan could complete the modifications that would give them at least a chance at returning to the Alpha quadrant through hyperspace.

'When can you be ready?'

Janeway smiled. 'I can have Mr. Paris meet us at your shuttle. I'm sure that he'll be there before we will, since that will give him a chance to actually check out one of your shuttles.'

Kahmmhi nodded. Janeway ended the meeting, and the officers who were remaining on Voyager left to relax on their off shift or reported back for duty. The rest of them followed her and Kahmmhi as they headed for the docking port where Kahmmhi's shuttle was docked. When they reached the shuttle, there was no sign of Tom Paris outside the docking bay. Krohn checked, and informed Kahmmhi that he was already on board the shuttle, and was currently talking with the pilots.

B'elana sighed. 'If he's talking with your pilots, you'll never get him to stop. They'll probably be out drinking half the night, swapping stories about their exploits with women.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'I seriously doubt that. First of all, alcohol doesn't affect us like it affects you. Second, both of the pilots are female, just as three fourths of our entire Clan is. A lot of the pilots are female, especially for PT boats and HATs, as well as our armored transports. Though I have to admit that the guys are represented in abnormally high numbers among our assault fighter pilots. Somewhere around fifty or sixty percent of them are male.'

B'elana and the others looked at each other in amazement. They hadn't really caught that detail in any of the stuff that they'd learned from the records that had been given to them. Though they believed that they would have caught the fact if they'd had more interactions with the Clan. If there was that much of a difference in the number of males and females, surely at least one of them would have noticed.

They entered the shuttle, stunned to find out that it was huge. There were almost as many people aboard the shuttle as the entire crew of Voyager.

'Uh, not to be too nosy, but why do you have so many females compared to the number of males? Have your losses in combat during your war been that bad?'

Brynhe shook her head. 'Our combat losses have actually declined over time, both in overall numbers and in the percentage of troops who go into combat who are killed by the enemy. Generally, there are three or four females born for every male birth. The numbers vary somewhat depending on which Clan you're talking about and whether they are Alphas, Betas, or Deltas, but all of the Clans have more females born than males. Betas have the closest to equal numbers, but about sixty percent of their births are still female.'

'How long will it take us to reach your ship?' Janeway thought that a change in topic might be in order. She was still anxious to find out how much protection Kahmmhi could provide if the Borg returned unexpectedly.

A huge male who was standing nearby spoke up without even being asked. 'Probably about thirty more seconds.'

Janeway looked stunned. Seven and Tuvok looked at each other. 'Your ship is actually that close to Voyager?'

'No. Our ships are all remaining near the hyper portal that we entered this system through. As soon as the Borg left the system, the Rolling Thunder resumed its position with the rest of our fleet.'

'But that is almost an hour away from our ship by shuttle, and the shuttle that we were using has gravitic drives.'

Kahmmhi looked at Seven and smiled. 'Yes, that's how long it would take for your shuttles to reach our ship. Our own gravitic drives are good enough to do it in around half an hour, give or take, because we are capable of about twice the speed that you are. But we're not using gravitics to get there.'

'Then what are we using?'

'Microjumping through hyper. It's the fastest way to cross a system or travel in real space. It works well if your inertial compensators can handle the repeated stresses, absorb the excess energy, and pump it back into the system. Though for this short a distance, we're only doing one small jump to cover most of the distance.'

Janeway looked at Tuvok, but he just shook his head. She knew from his expression that he could explain it to her later, at least theoretically, but it was just much too long and complex an explanation to go into right now.

'Buckle up, kiddies. Landing in fifteen.'

Most of the Clan personnel remained where they were, but Kahmmhi had Janeway and her companions sit down and strap themselves in. 'It's a safe landing because we're not going in hot and we're returning to our ship, but...' Kahmmhi sat down and so did most of the others. Janeway noted that all of the seats faced the rear of the shuttle.

'All of your seats face the rear of the shuttle. Why is that?'

'Standard Clan construction for small craft. All seats face the rear of the shuttle, and have since the very first assault shuttles were made. If you're in combat and the compensators take a hit that they can't handle completely, it's safer for you to be facing the rear of the ship. Especially if you're in a strike assault shuttle. The seat absorbs the impact, and you're not thrown around anywhere to suffer unnecessary injuries. Only certain seats for the crew don't face the rear of the craft. It's their job to remain functional at their stations and risk those injuries, but it's not the job of any troops or other personnel who are being transported on the craft.'

Janeway nodded. She was about to ask something else when everyone suddenly stood up and the hatch to the ship was thrown open. She looked around at the others, but clearly none of them had felt the landing either. Not even Paris, and he almost always had an infallible sense of direction and movement. That was one of the reasons that he was such an excellent pilot. She got out of the harness, stood up, and went over to Kahmmhi, followed by her staff.

As they started down the ramp, Janeway suddenly heard, 'Holy shit.' She knew exactly how Paris felt right at this moment. There were a number of large craft sitting in a hangar that stretched for much farther than any hangar on board a ship ever should. In fact, now that she could see the other craft inside the landing bay, she could see that they were much larger than any "small craft" should be. The ship that they had been on was about ninety meters long, twenty meters wide, and ten meters high, and clearly had three decks on it. There were at least several dozen of them in this one landing bay. They followed Kahmmhi and her Shadows as they led the way out of the landing bay and started walking down a long corridor. Janeway was impressed, since it appeared that the corridor was actually as long as any she'd ever seen on any Federation starship. Even the Galaxy class ships that she had been on.

'This is one of your scout ships?' Janeway didn't even try to hide her surprise and disbelief.

Kahmmhi shook her head, laughing lightly. 'Oh, no. This is the Rolling Thunder, our PUFF. The ship that accompanied the scout claw on our explorations because the mission was so dangerous and it would require us to remain separated from our Clan for a long time, operating on our own. It's much larger than any other ship that we have with us.'

'Exactly how large is this ship?'

'Just under thirty two thousand, if we're talking about the displacement.'

B'elana was unsure of what units of measurement they were talking about. 'How many metric tons is that?'

'Let's see. There are how many metric tons in a cubic kilometer, Krohn?'

'One million, Tahr Kahhni.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Then the displacement for this ship would be just under thirty two billion metric tons.'

Janeway and the others stopped walking, shocked by the response. 'You're kidding me. NOTHING is THAT large.'

Tuvok touched her elbow and pointed down the corridor to their right. She had been so busy talking to Kahmmhi and walking that she hadn't noticed the junction. She looked to the right, then realized that the corridor simply disappeared in the distance because of the parallax effect. When she turned to look in the other direction, she got the same view.

'Jesus. Just how big is this ship?'

'Forty five kliks in length, thirty kliks in diameter. Just over thirty one thousand, eight hundred cubic kilometers in displacement, as I said before.'

Janeway swallowed nervously, nodding to herself as her brain tried to come up with some answers that made sense. Yes, Kahmmhi was from an unknown alien culture that was humanoid, obviously highly technologically advanced, and just as obviously more warlike than even the Klingons. But nobody could support that kind of fleet simply because of the strain that even attempting to do so would place on their resources.

While Janeway and the others struggled to get over their shock, Kahmmhi led them to an elevator shaft and took them down to the bridge, talking calmly to them and explaining things about the ship to them along the way. When they reached the level that Kahmmhi had wanted, they left the elevator and walked down another long hallway, crossing a very large open space before going through a short corridor. When they entered another open area, Janeway realized that they were on the bridge of the ship.

'Welcome to the Rolling Thunder. My name is Virginia. I'm the captain of this ship, and the one in charge of the scout claw for the duration of our mission. Under Kahmmhi's command, of course. She became our Tahr Kahnnhi after we were stranded here, and will remain in command until we can find a way to rejoin our Clan.'

Janeway nodded, then looked around, taking in the bridge. In many respects, it was like her own bridge, only much larger. But she saw holo displays at several stations, and realized that they even used holo displays for their communications between ships. It was more advanced than anything that the Federation had, but still close enough for most of the things that they saw to make sense.

'Virginia, perhaps you should give her some idea of this ship's capabilities so that she isn't so worried that we're going to be overwhelmed by whatever the Borg send against us. She's worried that we're just using her ship as bait, and that we don't know what we're doing when it comes to dealing with someone with the capabilities that the Borg have.'

Virginia nodded. 'The Rolling Thunder is a PUFF. We have six broadside batteries of railguns, each containing fourteen large main railguns and twenty eight medium main railguns. Our forward main battery consists of six medium kinetic strike railguns, twelve large main railguns, and twenty four medium main railguns. In addition to that, there are numerous laser batteries spaced around our hull. Our main lasers have an effective range of ten million kliks against a Consortium battleship with full armor and shields.'

'Our enemy uses energy shielding that adapts to your laser frequency, so lasers are quickly ineffective.'

Virginia smiled at Tuvok. 'We are aware of that capability, since that was in the information that the Federation gave us concerning the Borg before we left DS9 and the Alpha quadrant. Accordingly, our lasers are set up so that they fire on independent frequencies, and if we initiate our programs for Borg attacks, each laser battery randomly alters its frequency between shots.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that each laser battery would be using a different frequency, and that the frequency of each battery would change every time that it was fired. The Borg couldn't possibly adjust their shield frequencies quickly enough to make the Clan lasers ineffective.

'Very impressive. And your railguns are clearly capable of delivering such overwhelming kinetic impacts that they overwhelm the best shields that the Borg have on their largest ships. But they will try to develop ways to counter your superior weapons and tactics, and they will return.'

Kahmmhi looked at Seven and smiled. 'We're counting on it. We have at least a few more weapons systems that we want to demonstrate to the Borg before we leave the Delta quadrant. We want to make sure that they work as effectively against the Borg as we think they should.'

'You used antimatter the first time, and destroyed all three Borg cubes. And you used your railguns during this last encounter. So far, you've managed to make everything look as if it was done by my ship. You can't do that with your lasers, and the Borg know that we don't have any small craft like any of the small craft that I saw in the landing bay.'

'We don't really intend to let the Borg see us, or even know that we're here, until we're sure that they're not going to be coming back to this system to try to assimilate your ship and take the technology that they want from you.'

'If you defeat the Borg again, and they have sent an even stronger force than the last one that attacked, how can you be sure that they will even be willing to come to this system again?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'I actually have a plan for that. When they return, we want Voyager to answer their challenge and demand that they leave the system. When they ignore that demand, we will launch another salvo from our railguns, like we did this time.'

'What happens if they're prepared for some kind of kinetic impacts and their shields can stand up to them?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'I have a very different type of railgun round in mind. There won't be any kinetics involved at all. It will all be energy release, but it won't exactly be anything like the antimatter explosions that we used to take out their first ships. I can guarantee that these explosions will be capable of taking out any ships that they send, even if they are larger than the large spheres that they sent during the last attack.'

Seven shook her head. 'I don't know of anything larger than the planetary assimilation spheres. If they do have larger ships, you can be certain that they will send them to this system. If they return, it will be because they know that you pose a serious threat to the very existence of the Collective, and they know that they must either destroy you completely, or acquire your technology so that the Collective can meet you on equal technological terms. They cannot allow a species that is hostile and possesses obviously superior technology to continue to exist simply because it is a threat to the continued existence of the entire Borg Collective.'

Kahmmhi nodded her head and smiled. 'That is what I'm counting on. If we can get them to attack one more time, and Captain Janeway is willing to cooperate with my plan to goad them into returning for at least one more try after that, we'll have some really nasty surprises waiting for them. I have a few tricks left up my sleeve.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that the Borg really had no idea what they were messing with. Kahmmhi was totally psychotic, and her followers were eager to do what she wanted. They were worse than a bunch of Jem'Haddar who were wired on tetracel white during a combat high.

Virginia began giving them a virtual tour of her ship, explaining to them how some systems worked, while doing her best to avoid answering certain questions that they naturally asked concerning other systems that the Clan had not given to anyone in the Federation or to their allies. There were some exceptions made in areas that Voyager had already learned about and developed on their own, though most of the technical details were omitted simply because they required Clan technology that neither Voyager nor the Federation and their allies could duplicate at this time.

After several hours, they took a break to eat. While they were eating, they continued their discussions, though they all studiously avoided becoming too involved in the topic.

Janeway looked at Kahmmhi. 'You're really serious about doing what you can to damage the Borg and make it so that they fear further encounters with you and the Clans, aren't you?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Not just us. We've already given some of our technology and capabilities to the Federation and their allies, and now you will be bringing even more of them back with you. Once they learn how to actually do more than open hyper portals and they begin to start exploring hyperspace, they will have access to vast quantities of antimatter. Enough that they should be able to do much more damage to any Borg fleet that they encounter than even the Borg are willing to accept. The Borg will learn to avoid your space and leave your ships alone, since you will pose a threat to them whenever you are attacked.'

'I don't understand why you would think that. You make it sound like the Federation and their allies are going to be increasing the size and power of their fleets and taking much more aggressive postures in their exploration of the universe.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'We specifically warned them about certain dangers that we found in the Gamma quadrant while we were doing exploration of hyperspace from the Bajoran system. If they begin using hyperspace, they are going to run into those threats much more rapidly than they would otherwise, unless they take certain precautions. And if they use the current method that you have of opening hyper points, they won't be able to hide their presence in other parts of the galaxy, even if they are able to hide the presence of their ships once they get there.'

Seven and Tuvok exchanged glances, realizing what such a dramatic change in their basic beliefs would mean for the Federation, as well as for both the Romulan and Klingon empires. Though after what they had been through in the Delta quadrant, they could really empathize with the Clan's viewpoint that they might want to be more cautious in their explorations, and that they definitely needed to be more capable of defending themselves from unexpected attacks and threats. A lot of their encounters with unknown species and cultures in the Delta quadrant had ended in violence, and many of the cultures and civilizations that the Clan had discovered in the Gamma quadrant were even more aggressive and warlike than anything that Voyager had encountered in the Delta quadrant.

'You seem to believe that you will be able to return us to DS9 and the Alpha quadrant within a relatively short time span. Yet you know that you will have to find a way to make our ship hyper capable in order to achieve this goal.' Tuvok tried to get Kahmmhi to reveal as much as he could of her plans so that Janeway would be able to learn something from her.

Kahmmhi nodded. 'We're sure that we can get you back to DS9 and the Alpha quadrant. As to how well your ship holds up, that is another matter. We can't rebuild it totally from scratch and upgrade all of your structural components to make it strong enough to operate in hyper normally. Your ship will make it back, but I doubt that they'll keep it functional for hyper operations. It would be much easier to rebuild another ship from scratch or to refit one of the more structurally sound ships that they have in their new fleet.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that if the Federation was upgrading their fleet, ships as small as Voyager would be either phased out or simply used as scouts or scientific exploration vessels. Most of the captured ships that were being used and upgraded were slightly larger than Voyager at the very least, with the rest being split almost equally between larger ships and smaller ships that were definitely only useful as scout ships. Anything as small as an Excelsior class starship could only pack so much punch, no matter how well you armed or armored it.

'Before I agree to work with you and remain in this system, waiting to see if the Borg really do return, I'm going to need some type of assurances that you can guarantee that they won't be able to stop you from eliminating the threat that their next fleet poses.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Do you remember what happened to the first Borg cubes that tried to assimilate you?'

Janeway nodded. They had disappeared without a trace, completely obliterated by some weapon that the Clan possessed.

'We intend to use much larger versions of the same bombs to stop the next attack. Whatever we fire on that is inside the blast radius has a life expectancy measured in nanoseconds, and there is absolutely no way to keep the weapon from totally destroying them.'

Janeway looked at the others. Tuvok and Seven both nodded, indicating that Kahmmhi's statement was correct. Janeway sighed, then nodded. 'Very well. We'll see if the Borg are as determined to gain this new technology as you seem to think they are. Besides, according to B'elana, the upgrades that are being made to Voyager will help us out greatly, even if we aren't able to use hyperspace to return to the Alpha quadrant much more quickly than we could with our current engines.'

'If you're not in a hurry to get back to your ship, you could spend the night and take some time to check out some of our own small craft tomorrow. And we could show you how we're modifying some of your shuttles so that they're much more capable than they currently are. While we're going to use fleet ships to stop the next Borg attack, we used three of our small craft to stop the first one.'

Janeway and the others stared at Kahmmhi in shock. Paris swallowed nervously. 'You used three small craft to stop the first Borg attack?'

'Well, we did have three talons of small craft out, just in case they did something unexpected, but only one ship from each talon launched a bomb toward the target cube. So, yes, technically three of our small craft took out the first three Borg cubes.'

They finished their meal in silence, and then Kahmmhi had Janeway and her staff taken to guest quarters so that they could spend some time relaxing and talking amongst themselves.

Janeway looked at the others as they met in her quarters. At Kahmmhi's suggestion, they were going to be bunking in two rooms, since Clan ships supposedly got very cold at night. There was plenty of room on the bed for her, B'elana and Seven, so that was no problem. And Tuvok and Paris could share a room as well.

'So, any comments?'

'If anything, they are even more technologically advanced than we had initially believed, captain.'

B'elana nodded, agreeing with Tuvok. 'Have you even SEEN their replicators?'

'Synthesizers is the term that they use. From their description of how they function, that is a much more appropriate name.'

'I know that, Seven, but they are AMAZING. And that is indicative of everything that they have. Even the things that we know and recognize are so much better than what we have.'

Tuvok nodded, agreeing with her. Janeway looked confused. 'Explain that, please, B'elana.'

'None of the stuff that they have works the same way that the things we have that do the same things do. The differences might be slight, but the effects are major. Their stuff is at least an order of magnitude better than our best. And it's not just the materials or the unique way that they make it work, either. They specifically design things to last almost forever, and they make them as efficient as they possibly can. We can't begin to compare with them on how efficient they make their energy utilization.'

'I thought that you'd made our new systems much better than anything that StarFleet had considered possible.'

'We have. But we're still way behind the Clan's capabilities. Our new gravitic drives are so efficient, and they're faster than impulse. But their drives are much more efficient, and their ships are at least twice as fast as ours are. And that's with all of the additional armor and heavy materials that they use in their construction. Their smallest small craft is an assault fighter. They're thirty five meters long, and require a crew of ten.'

Janeway nodded. 'So, what can we expect when we return to DS9 and the Alpha quadrant?'

'Well, we know that they are increasing the size of the fleets, and that they're using larger ships. The Clan told us that they were armoring and arming the ships that were captured so that they have an even larger and more powerful fleet to defend against any future threats.'

Janeway looked at Tuvok, waiting for him to continue. Instead, Paris spoke up. 'I've been talking to some of their pilots, and they said that the Federation and their allies were highly impressed with the way that the Clan uses their small craft to dramatically increase the combat capabilities of their fleet ships. They're going to see about trying to develop some small craft of their own for use in combat.'

'OK. So what does that have to do with us?'

'With the modifications that the Clan is doing to our shuttlecraft, they could use our shuttlecraft as a blueprint for how to at least get the first generation of small attack craft produced using technology and materials that we can currently produce on our own.' He looked around the room at the others. 'Our arrival in the Alpha quadrant could actually influence the development of the new Alliance considerably. We have discovered many things on our own, and with what the Clan has given us, there are even things that we could tell the Alliance that would advance their current technology and capabilities. And we also have a lot of data from our travels that will allow them to know a lot about the Delta quadrant before they even begin their own explorations. Including stellar mapping that would allow them to correlate their positions that they reach through hyper with the civilizations that we're aware of already.'

Seven nodded very solemnly. 'And there are other things as well. You have had many encounters with the Borg, and you know how they react to various things, as well as how they're reacting to their current encounters with the Clan. And your actions in this region of space are much more compatible with what they say the newly formed Alliance is doing than with what StarFleet regulations would have required of you.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that her actions here would be looked at very differently upon their arrival in the Alpha quadrant than they would have been under the old StarFleet guidelines. Not that it would have made any real difference. She was prepared to answer for any charges that the Federation Council or StarFleet command might want to level at her for her actions in the Delta quadrant. She had done exactly what was necessary to protect her ship and her crew, and had done her best to limit any intentional infractions of regulations, including the Prime Directive. There had, of course, been unintentional infractions over the years, as well as more than a few times where some infractions had been required simply to survive. The Delta quadrant was a very vast and dangerous place, especially for a single starship that was seventy years from their nearest support or supply line.

'We'll see what we can learn from them tomorrow. Perhaps we'll learn more about some of these things than they expect us to.'

Paris laughed heartily, but looked abashed when Janeway glared at him. 'I'm sorry, captain, but I somehow doubt that Kahmmhi is going to let you find out anything that she doesn't intend for you to know. She seems to have everything that she does very well planned out in advance.'

Seven nodded. 'That is true, captain. She even had her options for attacks and how to handle Borg attacks worked out long before they entered this system. And I'm sure that she has fallback plans already worked out just in case any of their attacks failed to have the impact that they wanted it to.'

Janeway looked a bit glum at that, but had to admit that the assessment was as accurate as it could get. The Clan was meticulous when it came to planning for any combat, and Kahmmhi had been planning out her current offensive against the Borg for a very long time before they had ever entered this system. They had been hunting the Borg with a specific purpose and intention fixed firmly in mind, and now it was time for Kahmmhi to fulfill that purpose. For some reason, she almost felt sorry for the Borg.

Seven smiled. 'At least the Borg don't have to deal with her entire Clan. Or her grandfather. From what I've heard, if they faced her grandfather and his Clan, there wouldn't be enough of the Borg left in this galaxy to even bother with.'

'What do you mean?'

'According to everyone that I've talked to, he would eliminate their culture and eradicate the Borg as a species.'

Janeway and the others looked at her. 'You have to be kidding.'

Seven shook her head. 'No, captain, I'm not. In fact, Kahmmhi destroyed the home world of the Founders when she came to the Delta quadrant, effectively gutting the Dominion and eliminating their ruling class at the same time.'

Janeway and the others looked at Seven dubiously. 'She destroyed an entire planet? How in the world did she manage to do that?'

'They used one of the more powerful weapons that they haven't used against the Borg yet, captain. The one that Kahmmhi says can be used to destroy either a planet or an entire solar system, depending on how it is used.'

B'elana looked shocked. 'You mean that the Clan actually USES weapons like that on their enemies?'

Seven nodded. 'The data indicates that they do try to limit the use of such weapons, but whenever they run into a problem that requires something like that, either to accomplish the mission at all, or to limit their own losses in combat against vastly superior numbers, they are willing to use them. While Kahmmhi seems to have done this in order to stop another large invasion and to eliminate the threat that the Founders themselves posed, it seems that her grandfather has taken similar actions in the past simply to make an example and remind their enemy that they not only possess such capabilities, but they are willing to use them whenever they feel it is necessary.'

Tuvok raised an eyebrow at Janeway's questioning glance. 'I will attempt to acquire more data on the Clan and their normal behavior and thinking, but what I have seen indicates that they base everything in their culture on their survival and their military capabilities to make sure that they can survive against their enemies. Their entire culture has been based on such beliefs ever since her grandfather founded their culture.'

Janeway nodded, having to remind herself that the Clan's culture was ancient. Kahmmhi hadn't really said anything specific about their Clan's history, but buried in the files that had been given to them was enough of a summary for them to get an idea of how the Clans had originated and what their culture and social structure was designed to accomplish. Some of it didn't quite make sense, but Janeway did know that Kahmmhi's grandfather had started their culture, and that they had been at war with their enemies for millennia. That didn't explain how they could live so long, but that wasn't really important to her at the moment. What was important was that their entire culture was intentionally designed to achieve specific objectives. First and foremost among all of those objectives was their survival in the face of a vastly more numerous enemy who was determined to eradicate all traces of the Clan and their existence from the universe. Seemingly at any cost. The very fact that the Clan was still alive and thriving proved that they were definitely good at both warfare and survival.

Janeway shivered, then looked around curiously. 'Is it getting cold in here already?'

Tuvok nodded. 'The ambient temperature has dropped by about five degrees Centigrade in the past hour.'

'We had better get ready for bed soon, or we'll already be getting cold before we have a chance to get under the covers and try to conserve what body heat we can.'

Tuvok nodded, and he and Paris went next door to their room to prepare for the night. Janeway and the others quickly stripped and climbed under the thick layer of blankets on their bed. They knew from their survival classes that the warnings that they'd received from the Clan females were accurate, and that the best way to keep warm at night was to huddle together while they were naked so that they conserved as much body heat as possible. It looked like it was going to be a long, cold night.

When they woke in the morning, Janeway looked at the others. 'Tell me again why the Clan doesn't regulate their ship's internal temperatures at night like we do.'

B'elana sighed, shivering as the still cold air in the room made her nipples stick out as they ran for the shower and hot water before dressing. 'It's part of their efficiency on the heat exchangers that they use to maintain the overall efficiency of their energy utilization. It's a pain in the butt, but it gives them unbelievable efficiency.'

Seven raised an eyebrow. 'You'd think that they'd at least use some type of heaters in their bedding, such as an electric blanket.'

B'elana shook her head. 'They have much higher metabolisms than we do, so they don't worry about it. They're probably much warmer at night than we were.'

Janeway nodded. 'Just remind me to bring a phaser and heat the bed BEFORE we climb into it next time.'

B'elana nodded. 'That will last for about an hour. So who gets out of bed stark naked and heats it up after that?'

Seven rolled her eyes. 'We would all have to get out of the bed for that to be safe, of course. Though if the options were to lie there and risk being slightly cooked or stand naked in the cold room with my nipples freezing off, I'd have to carefully consider the risks before making a final decision.'

Janeway nodded. 'I'm with her.' She grinned. 'Technically, you are the lowest ranking member of our crew in the room, B'elana.'

B'elana rolled her eyes. 'Oh, sure. Just make the freaking engineer freeze her Klingon ass off. Typical.'

Janeway giggled as they started soaping up under the steaming jets of hot water in the shower. 'I thought that Klingons were into pain so that it showed their discipline, B'elana.'

'No offense, but bite me, captain.' She shuddered in almost orgasmic ecstasy. 'Oh, God, that hot water feels so good, and it really takes the chill out of your bones. I am SO glad that they don't use sonic showers like we do.'

Seven nodded. 'The Clan considers them a waste of energy. Pumping the hot water throughout the ship allows them to heat the ship, redistribute heat and energy, and recycle water all at the same time. And the water from their showers and toilets helps move all of the solid wastes to the recycling centers so that it can be properly processed as well.'

Janeway shook her head, thanking whatever gods the Clan believed in that they actually used hot water for their showers, regardless of their reasons or how efficient it made their reclamation systems. Once they finished their shower and dried off, they found that they were almost late for breakfast. They dressed quickly, and were ready when their guide showed up to bring them down to have breakfast with Kahmmhi and Virginia.

'So, Tom, how did you like the shower?'

'It was OK, but water? Wouldn't a sonic shower be more efficient? I thought that these guys were supposed to be so much more technologically advanced than we are.'

'No. Besides, the steam really heated us up nicely after almost freezing to death last night.'

'Steam?'

B'elana looked at him in astonishment. 'You didn't even see how hot it could get?'

'Well, it was warm enough, so we just showered quickly and dressed. I mean, it was still cold, so why waste time in the shower?'

B'elana shook her head. Men could be so dense. The whole point of a nice, long, hot shower was to enjoy the steam and relax. And warming up after a long, cold night just made the whole experience even more enjoyable. 'Just never mind, Tom. You'd never get it. You're a guy.'

Paris shrugged, wondering what she was miffed about, but he didn't really care. They had reached the quarters that they were heading for, and as the door opened, he smelled a lot of hot, fresh, wonderful food. That was all that he was thinking about once he got a good whiff, and he completely forgot about the showers as his stomach began rumbling. Whatever it was, it smelled really good.

After they sat down, they all began eating. None of them could believe how much food tiny Kahmmhi ate, and even Janeway was no longer bothered by how much Paris seemed to be eating because he wasn't even keeping up with Kahmmhi.

'This is really great. What is it?'

'Chyrrka sausage. Be careful of the ones with the red spots in them. They're spicy.'

Paris nodded, eating the others. Hearing that some of them were spicy, B'elana tried one, since she always liked spicy food. After a few bites, she found that while she liked the flavor, the thing was too spicy to eat without drinking something and eating some other foods to keep the burn from getting to her.

'This is really good, but they really are kind of spicy.'

Kahmmhi looked at B'elana's plate, then shook her head. 'Don't eat with any of the Xylchans. They like theirs much hotter than those. And the ones that my grandfather and his Shadows eat all of the time would kill you.'

'I take it that your grandfather likes his food really spicy?'

Kahmmhi looked at Janeway. 'Um, yeah, that is one way of putting it. I'd never know, since every time he ever cooked his chili the way he liked it and actually cooked it instead of synthesizing it, the air in the room was too much for me. I couldn't breathe, and was choking on the fumes. Grandma said that it actually peeled the paint off of the walls once. I really don't know if she was exaggerating or not. The chili could cause actual chemical burns on anyone who ate it who wasn't used to that much spice.'

B'elana and the others stared at her, wondering exactly what her grandfather was if he could actually eat something like that. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't human.

After they finished their meal, they talked and enjoyed hot drinks for a while, and then Kahmmhi led them to the bridge and gave them more of a tour of the ship. After several hours, they broke for lunch, and then she took them to a shuttle bay and they went to different parts of the ship and saw several different areas, including their engine rooms, life support, auxiliary control, and several other places. They were all amazed at the recycling and reclamation area, and were truly impressed when they actually got to see the main railgun battery for the PUFF, where all of the rounds were loaded and fired.

'I still don't see how you get so much speed out of your projectiles.'

'Gravitic pulses propel the thing down the tube, giving it constant acceleration along the way. And we do use a charge of antimatter to start the projectile moving before the gravitic pulse catches it, so the acceleration curve doesn't exactly start at zero.'

Seven nodded her head. 'Very ingenious. Who came up with an idea like that?'

'That would be my grandfather. He knew all about old fashioned chemical artillery and ballistics from his time spent in warfare on Earth before they left, so he adapted that to the system that they had. The Consortium used their system the way that most people on Earth were trying to develop railguns, with rings along the length of the barrel catching the projectile and speeding it to the next ring, kind of like moving it from one ramp to another. My grandfather had them change things so that we ran a gravitic pulse along the sides of the tube so that the entire tube was constantly providing more acceleration, and then fired it off. We get a LOT more acceleration out of our railguns than the Consortium can with anything of the same size.'

Tuvok nodded, doing the math in his head and coming up with a LOT of difference in the relativistic speeds that could be created under those conditions. Enough that the kinetic energy of the projectile could be as much as several orders of magnitude greater. Definitely an advantage in combat.

'Exactly how fast can your railguns fire a projectile?'

'Do you mean how fast can we reload and fire, or how fast can we accelerate a projectile?'

'Um, both, I guess.'

'Well, well trained gunners can reload and have the next round ready in about thirty seconds, and when we're doing broadsides with rolling thunder, the PUFF rotates so that each broadside faces our target once per minute, so we're firing one salvo off every ten seconds. As for how fast the projectiles are, the fastest are the medium kinetic strike railguns on the forward battery. Their projectiles have a top speed of zero point two five c.'

Janeway and the others nodded. That had been the speed of the projectiles that had gone past Voyager at close range during the last Borg attack, so they weren't quite as stunned as they would have been if they hadn't already seen the Clan's railguns in action.

'They don't have as many railguns, but the main kinetic strike railguns on a PAC, which is the largest type of ship in my grandfather's fleet, can fire projectiles at zero point four five c. They've been known to destroy planets if they use the wrong type of rounds in them.'

Tuvok just nodded mutely, realizing that the kinetic energy from a projectile moving at that speed would do very bad things to ANY habitable planet, regardless of the type of projectile that they were using. The friction from its entry and passage through the atmosphere would vaporize a LOT of atmosphere, and the impact would cause an ice age on the planet at the very least. In very common terms, it would be an extinction level event for most civilizations or planets.

Janeway smiled weakly. 'Um, yeah. Definitely a planet killer. We already saw what they did to the large Borg ships that you were attacking them with, and none of them were even hit with a solid projectile.'

'We do like to make sure that we don't risk underestimating our enemy when we launch a sneak attack or ambush, captain. My grandfather always said that if you hit them so hard that there are no survivors, there isn't anyone to warn the others about your capabilities, and then the learning curve is that much steeper for the enemy. Make them pay in blood just as dearly as you can for everything that they ever learn about your tactics and your technology.'

Janeway swallowed nervously, unable to keep from shuddering slightly. She was very glad that she wasn't having to deal with Kahmmhi's grandfather. Though somewhere in the back of her mind, she didn't think that she was anywhere near as glad of that fact as the Borg were, whether they knew that or not. The man just sounded really intimidating. And extremely dangerous, especially to his enemies.

'Your grandfather sounds like a very singleminded warrior.'

Janeway glared at Seven.

'Uh, yeah, the enemy seems to think so. They've been trying to kill him and his entire family for about six or seven millennia now. He actually seems to like toying with their best assassins, though he does capture some of them alive so that he gets a chance to interrogate them for information before he kills them.'

'He kills prisoners?'

'Of course. They're Consortium, and they're of the member races. All of the member races of the Consortium have to die. That's the only way to end the war.' She paused. 'Well, some of the Charkal are still left alive, but only the ones who are willing to surrender and stop trying to fight against the Clans. None of the other members of any of the other Consortium races will agree to that, so prisoners from those races are eventually put to death. And some of their warriors who are from certain slave races are also executed. Garns are singleminded in their obedience to the Graks and the Consortium, and they die fighting. If you don't kill them, they'll pick up the first available weapon and try to kill you the first opportunity that they get, so we just kill them even if they do try to surrender.'

'That sounds barbaric and inhuman.'

Kahmmhi shrugged, having heard that type of response from her time at DS9. 'Possibly. But every time that we have tried to accept the surrender of an injured Garn, he has been trying to kill as many of our troops as possible before he died. It's usually some kind of bomb or trap, but some of them are just injured and have a knife or some other personal weapon. They always try to kill you when you get close enough, and they always die.'

Janeway shook her head. 'That sounds even more singleminded than the Jem'Haddar or the Borg. Totally psychotic and homicidal behavior.'

'That's typical for a Garn. Graks are generally worse, since they get blood lust and lose control in combat if they are injured severely or if they get desperate and think that they're going to die no matter what. Though there are some times when Graks do try to flee to save themselves, hoping to return later when the odds are in their favor so that they can kill us. Graks and Garns are both totally xenophobic when it comes to any race that isn't part of the Consortium, especially if that race poses a potential threat to the Consortium or their place ruling it.'

Kahmmhi chuckled softly. 'Lehr says that it's because they're lizards, and all lizards are hardwired to use just the lizard hindbrain.'

Krohn smiled. 'Lehr often takes the position that the Graks don't have anything BUT a lizard hindbrain, and he often argues that all of the other brains and stuff that they take out of their skulls when they kill them are just unused portions that never developed.'

Kahmmhi chuckled. 'Lehr's a chyrrhp. Graks CAN use their brains and learn things, but they prefer to just stick to killing things and making their slaves perform menial labor for them. Still, they ARE obstinate and very stuck in their routine, and they don't like or accept change very well. That is one reason that the entire Consortium is stagnating and rotting from within. They don't adapt, change, or progress fast enough. They just want to expand their sphere of influence to get more slaves and more raw materials so that they can control more things and make sure that there's nothing out there that can threaten them or contest their control of the universe.'

Janeway and the others realized that the Consortium was really doomed if that was the case. They couldn't possibly stand up to something that had the adaptive capabilities, intelligence, and creativity that the Clan had displayed, no matter how large their empire was, if they couldn't adapt and deal with progress. Stagnation and decay always led to the fall of great empires.

'Well, I guess that I should get you back to where you can get some food, and then probably return you to your ship so that you don't have to spend another night on board our ship. I'm sure that you found the temperature on our ship fairly uncomfortable at night.'

Janeway thought about her response for a few seconds, but decided that the luxurious steaming shower wasn't worth the effort of surviving another night on board a Clan ship. She smiled. 'That would be nice. No offense, but nights are not really nice on board a Clan ship. They're very cold. And while the nice, hot, steaming shower in the morning is really great, I'm not sure that it's worth spending another night on board the ship just to get to enjoy the hot shower afterwards.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Spoken like a true hedonist. Of course, with your metabolisms, it probably gets really cold at night, even if there are several of you huddled under the blankets together. There are SOME benefits to having a high metabolism on board a Clan ship. And the females who have very large husbands tell me that they make great heaters when the night gets really cold, so small females like myself usually sleep on top of them after they are married. That way he not only doesn't crush you by rolling on top of you in his sleep, but you stay warm all night as well.'

Janeway thought that was a very intelligent way of looking at things, and wondered how many of his wives slept on top of Kahmmhi's grandfather, since she had mentioned that he had some very small wives and he was a very large man, even by Clan standards. Some of the Clan males that she had seen made most of the largest Klingons that she had ever met look small, so that meant that her grandfather had to be huge. And while the thought did pique her scientific curiosity, she was NOT going to try to satisfy that curiosity by asking the question. Even if her host knew, she didn't want to know the answer.

After they ate supper, Kahmmhi led them to the shuttle bay and they boarded the ship. If she didn't know how big the Clan ship that they were on was, the size of the "shuttle" that had been docking with Voyager would have made them all more nervous or impressed than they were. As it was, they simply accepted that the Clan's tech was definitely more advanced than that of StarFleet, the Federation, or any of the cultures that they dealt with on a regular basis.

When they got back to Voyager, Janeway let them all go to their quarters and rest. They'd check on the progress that had been made in the morning, and then meet with her for a late breakfast to go over what they had learned and prepare for the possibility that the Borg would return to this system.

Seven shook her head, disagreeing with the estimate that Tuvok had just put forth. 'The Borg will attempt to take this new technology. They MUST acquire it or, at the very least, keep us from taking it to the Alpha quadrant.'

'How certain of this are you, Seven?'

Seven looked over, fixing Janeway with a level, constant gaze that showed no emotion at all. 'I'm certain of it. If you do as Kahmmhi has asked and actually let the Borg know that it IS Voyager in this system, they will not only press their next attack as hard as they can with their available forces, but if the rest of the Collective finds out about it, they will follow up that attack with the most massive force that they can muster. Once they know that we have developed this new technology, and that we'll be taking it back to the Alpha quadrant, they will know that they must take this technology for themselves if they wish to survive. Allowing you to get it back to the Alpha quadrant would put them at a serious disadvantage, and that would potentially threaten the continued existence of the entire Borg Collective. They will do everything that they can to either take it or destroy it, no matter what the cost.'

'And you believe that Kahmmhi is aware of this?'

'I believe that Kahmmhi is counting on it, captain. She wants to bait the Borg into attacking and overextending themselves so that she can do as much damage as possible to the entire Collective before she returns to the Alpha quadrant herself, or at least returns to the area in the Delta quadrant where the wormhole that leads to DS9 connects to the Alpha quadrant.'

'What do you believe, Mr. Tuvok?'

'I believe that it actually makes very little difference whether Seven is correct or incorrect, captain.'

Chakotay raised his eyebrows in disbelief, and even Janeway sat back in her seat and turned to stare at him.

'If I may postulate, captain?' At her nod, he continued. 'The Borg are extremely interested in finding out about whatever technology we possess, whether they know that we possess it or not. They have already attacked and tried to assimilate us twice, and have been very thoroughly defeated each time. Now they know that the new and important technology that they are seeking is inside this system, and that whoever does possess it does have the potential to be a threat to the continued existence of the Collective. That we could shift the balance of power, so to speak.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that the Borg were already having serious problems just dealing with their protracted war against the species that inhabited subspace, and their continued war with them wasn't going as well as the Borg would like.

'The Borg are predictable enough in their normal behaviors. They haven't suffered serious losses yet, and the potential that they could gain by assimilating what they've run into in this system could easily turn the balance of their current war, as well as making it possible for them to assimilate many more species and gain all of their technology so that it can be added to the Collective. They will return. They have no choice. They haven't been convinced yet that they can't win, that they can't possibly assimilate this new technology.'

Janeway nodded. 'How long until we are ready to resume our journey, B'elana?'

'Several more months at the very least. The modifications that the Clan techs are making are amazing, and they are progressing much more rapidly than even the best shipyards in StarFleet could possibly do it, but there is still a lot of work remaining to be done, captain. And we have to have the entire hull armor replaced if we're going to have a chance of ever going into hyperspace safely. That has to be done last.'

Janeway nodded. 'Very well. It looks like we have very little choice but to do what Kahmmhi wishes for us to do. I've reviewed the data that we were given myself, and they actually have a treaty with the Federation and their allies. We aren't required to aid them in any offensives, but we are required to allow them to handle their own interactions with other species in their own way. Anything that attacks the Clan is definitely considered hostile, and they are allowed to respond with impunity. Anything that attacks their allies or other cultures that they consider "humanity", they are allowed to defend, even if that means annihilating the attacking force and refusing to allow any of it to surrender.'

'Borg do NOT surrender, captain.'

Janeway nodded. 'I'm very well aware of that fact, Seven.' She took a deep breath. 'What about our defenses?'

Chakotay sighed. 'Our defenses are intact, captain. The hull armor will be put on in layers, and after the last layer is on, we'll be able to incorporate the new Clan shields. It's only during the armoring process itself that we'll have sections of our hull that won't be shielded because our shield emitters can't cover them.'

B'elana shook her head. 'That won't matter. I've tested their shielding, and I've gone over the numbers with the leader of the crew who will be installing it. They call their builders SeaBees. Some sort of weird acronym for Construction Battalions, and all of the members are warriors as well as builders. Just the first layer of hull armor that they'll be putting on Voyager will provide more protection than our current hull armor, shields, and internal integrity fields combined. Once they have the full hull armor on and have their shields in place, we'll have much more protection than even quantum armor would provide.'

Janeway swallowed, forgetting what she had been about to ask. Paris whistled. 'Damn, that is a LOT of protection.'

B'elana rolled her eyes. 'Look at what they can do with kinetics. We still won't be able to stand up to their lasers for very long if we took on someone with their weaponry. By their standards, they're overarmoring a ship that is way too small to be allowed into a combat zone safely.'

'Are we going to have any problems that haven't been foreseen or addressed already?'

Paris shook his head. 'No. Their drives will allow us to move through real space more quickly than we can right now under impulse, and even with all of the additional mass of the armor, we'll be much faster and much more maneuverable than we currently are. We WILL have to avoid making any really sharp course corrections until we know what our structural integrity and the compensators can deal with safely. Their idea of sharp course changes defy the laws of physics that we've had to deal with for our ships.'

Janeway nodded, having seen how some of the Clan small craft avoided problems in some of the video that they had of the battle in the Bajoran system. Even when they didn't "skip", which she gathered was some type of microjump using hyperspace instead of a warp microjump, Clan ships were able to alter their course, speed, vector, trajectory, attitude, and about any other thing that you could think of instantaneously. Even full reversals didn't require any time to slow down, and there was no time required to alter the speed. They simply went at the same speed or even greater speed in whatever new direction they changed their heading to and let their inertial compensators handle all of the inertia and stress. It didn't really defy the laws of physics, but they simply used different ways to collect the energy and then use it to compensate for the changes. The math made her head spin, but it actually worked.

'We will not be able to use transporters once our hull is armored.'

'What do you mean?'

'Transporter signals won't go through their armor. It's too dense. Even with signal boosters, it won't work.'

'So we'll have to use transports for all of our away missions?'

Paris nodded. 'Yes, sir. And even our shuttles won't be capable of using transporters once they've been fully armored. It seems that just a few centimeters of their hull armor is enough to eliminate transporter capability.'

Janeway nodded. With the improvements that they were being given, the minor inconvenience of not being able to transport on or off of the ship was an acceptable trade-off. Besides, it did eliminate the threat of any of their potential enemies using that method of invading Voyager, which had already happened more than once since they had come to the Delta quadrant. 'I can live with that inconvenience.'

Chakotay nodded. 'It does provide some security gains in return.' He smiled as he saw Janeway's reaction to his statement, realizing that she knew that he knew she'd just been thinking about that as well.

'Anything else? What about our weapons?'

'They're leaving ports for the phasers and photon torpedoes, but they're covering the openings with their armor so that we don't have targetable weak points. They're going to add in some Clan lasers. Ours will have a range of three million kliks or so, just like Kahmmhi thought, and the numbers on their strength also seems to come out right around the range that she thought it would. Evidently, their preliminary work in that area during the early part of the refitting of the captured fleet was fairly detailed and accurate.'

Janeway sighed, then smiled at Chakotay. 'Well, we'll have better armor, better shielding, and our weapons will be better and more powerful, as well as leaving us with our original weapons. And our engines will allow us to move faster, be more agile, and not require any real fuel or energy.'

Chakotay nodded. 'That definitely sounds like an upgrade to me, captain.'

Janeway shrugged. 'Is their anything else that we need to discuss?'

'Seven and I would like permission to request time on board some of their ships to see how they travel with their gravitic drives, how they use their hyper capabilities on their small craft, and things like that, captain.'

'If Kahmmhi will agree to it, and you aren't required for any duties here, I see no problem with that. Perhaps that would allow the two of you to learn even more about the technology that we've been trying to study.' She looked around the table, then smiled. 'If there's nothing else to discuss, I guess all that we can do right now is watch the repairs and wait for the Borg to show up inside the system again.'

The meeting broke up, and the officers returned to their duties. It was probably going to be a while before any more Borg could reach this system, and things seemed to be achieving a sort of new routine.

Kahmmhi and Virginia were both surprised by the request, but had no problems with allowing Paris and Seven to spend some time on some of their scout craft that were patrolling the region. In fact, they made sure that the pilots knew that they were to try to help them understand what they could of what was going on during normal flight operations. After their first week of being aboard the Clan scout ships, Kahmmhi allowed Tuvok and Ensign Kim to join them so that they would have their science officer and navigator included in the learning process.

They had been observing missions for about five weeks when there was an alert. Paris noticed the change in the shuttle crew immediately. 'What's wrong?'

'One of the sensors in the outer net detected passage of unknown ships. They're traveling at high warp speed.'

'How long until they reach the system?'

'Just a few hours. They haven't hit the inner net yet, and none of the ships at the edge of the system on picket duty has reported anything yet, either.'

'What are we going to do?'

The pilot laughed. 'Well, we're already skipping across the system at our best speed, in case you hadn't had time to notice it, yet, and we're heading for Voyager. Our orders are to return you to your ship so that you can man your duty stations there while the Borg are inside the system.'

Paris nodded, and watched how the pilots handled the multiple sequential microjumps in quick succession, still finding it amazing that they could do that without pulling any apparent G's inside the ship. He knew by now that the Clan kept the gravity in their ship turned WAY down whenever any of Voyager's crew was aboard one of their ships.

They arrived at Voyager, docked, and Paris and the others left the shuttle quickly. As they reached the turbolift to head for the bridge, Chakotay contacted them on their comm badges. 'Take your time. Eat something, and take a break. According to the Clan, we still have several hours. The captain wants you to relax a bit and show up on the bridge in two hours, ready for duty.'

'Aye, sir.' Paris looked at the others. 'Chow?'

Harry nodded. 'I've been wanting to try some of the new foods that they were talking about and see how well the new synthesizers work. They just put a set into the main mess hall.'

'What are we waiting for, then? Beest stew it is.'

Harry shook his head. 'Chyrrka for me. And they said that there's these really good mushrooms that go well with the chyrrka, so I'm going to see if ours taste as good as theirs.'

Seven shook her head, wondering when the two of them would ever grow up and quit acting like juveniles. The food was good, hot, and nutritious. What more did they want?

The four of them entered the mess hall, surprised to see B'elana and most of the primary crew eating there. 'If you're all here, who's running the ship?'

'Third shift, and they're on skeleton watch. There are still about a hundred Clan engineers on board to make sure that there aren't any real problems with the areas that are still under construction, just in case the Borg do get close enough to launch some attacks of their own at us.'

Harry looked at her curiously. 'Who's guarding them, then?'

'Nobody's guarding them, Harry. We trust them.'

'I meant who's protecting them?'

B'elana laughed. 'They have their own armor and sidearms, and none of them seem to want to be protected by our security forces. Personally, from what I've seen of how strong they are, if the Borg do board the ship and go hand to hand with them, I'd bet on the drones needing to go to sick bay for their injuries. Those Clan guys are STRONG as hell.'

Harry nodded, conceding the point. The last place that he'd ever expect to see ANY Clan member was at some peace rally.

They all got their food quickly, sat down, and chatted with B'elana as they ate. She was interested in hearing about what they knew from their time on the Clan shuttles, and they were interested in finding out what she had found out about what was happening.

'All that I know is it's more than a dozen ships, and several of them are large. I only overheard the preliminary report as they were getting it in the background while Chakotay ordered me to get some down time so that I'd be fresh for duty in a few hours.'

'We didn't even know that, but they did say that they had detected them as they passed their outer ring of sensors outside the system. They hadn't reached the inner ring of sensors or the pickets at the perimeter of the system yet. They're moving at high warp, but they're still several hours away.'

B'elana nodded. 'That's a very long way out if they're moving at high warp. How big is the sensor net that they put up around this system?'

Tom shook his head. 'I have no idea.'

Seven shrugged as B'elana looked at her. 'They think nothing of expending large amounts of resources and energy whenever they think that something is important. But I can't even begin to guess as to how many sensors they would have to put out because I have no idea how their sensors work, how great their range is, or anything else that is relevant to making an educated guess. I'm not even sure how they are able to send signals faster than light from their sensors to this system for them to know that before the ships get here.'

'They use hyperspace relays.'

Everyone turned to look at Tuvok. 'How would you even know that?'

'I asked how the system worked so that they could actually detect something that was moving at relativistic speeds and receive the information about it before it could even reach the system. Since hyperspace is in another dimension of sorts, distances don't correlate to real space distances. Even ships can move through hyperspace at what appear to be much greater speeds than they could in real space, but the distance is just different. Space is bent, twisted, or compressed so that two points that are very far apart in real space are almost touching in hyperspace. Similar in some ways to traveling through a wormhole. But since their data signals travel at light speed, even in hyperspace...'

Paris nodded. 'They travel faster than they could in real space because they're not really traveling the same distance.' It was similar in ways to how the Federation communicated at faster than light speeds by using subspace transmissions.

Tuvok nodded. 'That is why they normally limit their hyperspace travel to using the hyper streams that they find. They have fixed termini within real space, so you know where it leads to once you've mapped it. Without that information, even they can't really predict what location they will come out at in real space if they travel through hyperspace outside of the hyper streams. There are no reference points in hyperspace to let you know how far you're traveling and no way to really track your vector or speed, so you are traveling blind, as they put it.'

Harry looked worried. 'Wow, that is really scary. Stay in the hyper streams or risk getting really lost for a very long time. And you don't even know where the hyper streams lead to until you've actually gone out and mapped them for yourself. No wonder they were telling us that we need to be very cautious and take our time before we start going out and exploring hyperspace the same way that we've gone out exploring the galaxy in real space. At least in real space we know where we're at and how to get home, even if we did use warp travel to get there.'

Seven looked very thoughtful. 'The Clan is very wise to restrict what they have told of this capability to everyone that they have met in this galaxy. Such power could easily cause the downfall of most civilizations if they did not take proper precautions in its use.'

'But surely the Federation...'

'Mr. Kim, think of how ill prepared we were when we found ourselves in the Delta quadrant, cut off from all aid from the Federation, and not knowing how to get home. Now, think of what would happen to the Federation and the rest of the Alpha quadrant if we were to suddenly take such technology so some area of the Gamma quadrant and they acquired it from us. What would happen if some warlike society that was more powerful than the Borg suddenly acquired hyper travel from us and went back to the Alpha quadrant? Could we properly prepare for an invasion of that magnitude with only a few months or years in which to prepare?'

Harry shook his head. 'Not that quickly. And once they had a foothold in the Alpha quadrant, or once they found another way to our space that we didn't know about, they'd be able to pop out of nowhere with no warning at all, and then nobody would be safe.'

'Hopefully, that won't happen. And I, for one, intend to do everything that I can to make sure that we do get this technology back to the Alpha quadrant so that we have it before anyone else in this galaxy can either discover or develop it on their own. So, if you will excuse me, I'm heading back down to engineering. We've already got some of the Clan's energy sources set up, so I'm going to see if they're online and running properly so that we can divert power from them if we need to.'

B'elana got up and left, leaving the rest of them to finish their meals. They were beginning to realize that while the Clan might have some plans of their own to damage the Borg, they were also doing what they could to make sure that the Federation didn't get in over their head from the very start by developing new technologies before they even realized what some of the unintended consequences of using those technologies could be.

The hive queen couldn't believe the size of the approaching force. She had never heard of any force that large being sent to a single system. Certainly not one that wasn't even inhabited and the core of a major high tech civilization. The hive queen in charge of the approaching force contacted her, commanding her to keep her scout spheres there to watch and learn how to properly assimilate new technology. The three cubes that were in her force would be taken to add to their own scout force. They had all been repaired properly by now, even if they were still operating with fewer drones on board than they normally had. That would bring the size of the attack force up to seven cubes, four planetary assimilation spheres, and three system assimilation cubes.

'The enemy does not operate like any enemy that we have faced before. They are not repeating the same tactics and using the same weapons, and they seem to know how to keep our forces from adapting to overcome their weapons and technology.'

'They will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.'

'Attacking them head on is futile if they are capable of using weapons that destroy our ships before we can attack them or assimilate their technology and add it to our Collective.'

'Their firepower has its limits, and we will overcome them. They cannot stand against our largest ships. System assimilation cubes cannot be defeated. They will be assimilated. We will assess your fitness once we have dealt with this new species. Your uniqueness appears to be adapting too far from consensus. If that is so, you are defective, and you will be replaced.'

The hive queen didn't bother to argue with the other hive queen. There was no point. If she succeeded, the new technology would be assimilated, and her point would be proven. The Hive Mind would achieve consensus, and that would be carried out, regardless of the decision. If she failed, the hive queen would still report her failure and any other information that she managed to gather concerning the new threat to the Collective.

After the other ships were past her, she began moving her scout spheres out behind them, remaining well behind them and spreading out as they went, making sure that they would remain where she told them to and gather the data from this attack. None of her ships would enter the system, and they would run at the first sign of any enemy action against them or movement toward their positions. Either way, the Borg Collective would learn something more about the enemy from this encounter.

'They are coming in as two waves. Most of the force is on the front wave. The three small scout spheres that have been hanging around out there are following and maintaining their distance.'

Virginia smiled. 'Watchers. They're going to try to gather intel and report back. They intend to make sure that they get something from this encounter as well.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'The spheres from the first and second encounters. The ones that survived. What about the cubes that survived?'

'They added them to the main force.'

Kahmmhi chuckled. 'They sent what they could, but they're not taking any chances. They didn't have enough small cubes to send them out in front and properly scout ahead of the main force, so they're bringing their scouts up to snuff.'

'Well, we can't say that they don't have ANY intelligence when it comes to military tactics.'

'What about the scouts who are hanging back, sir?'

Virginia looked at Kahmmhi. 'Well?'

'They're not going to enter the system. Let them stay and collect what they can. They're not going to be able to see much this time. If they try to enter the system, go ahead and give them a few thumps to see if they're going to be easily discouraged or if they're serious. But if they run, let them go. If this attack gets hammered, I think that they're going to pull out all of the stops on the next one. That will let us truly gauge their combat capabilities and see how much of a threat they really are.' Kahmmhi grinned. 'And it will give us a chance to really make a statement that the Borg will NOT be able to ignore. It will definitely get their attention, and make sure that they learn not to mess with the Clan.'

'Roger that. Orders going out.'

'Cool. When you're done with that, contact Janeway so that we can go over what I want her to do this time. I'm sure that she's going to love sticking it to the Borg. And it will definitely take them off guard and confuse the hell out of whatever Borg they have that's actually doing all of the thinking and planning. Somebody has to be running things, even if most of their crew are those mindless drones that the Federation keeps talking about.'

Paris and the others had reported to their posts just over half an hour ago, and finally they were detecting some movement inside the system. While it was a relief to finally see the Borg forces and know what they were facing, the reality of it was mind numbing. Seven Borg cubes was very bad. And this time there were four of the huge planetary assimilation spheres. Those were really bad. But there were three even larger cubes accompanying them as well, and even after seeing the PUFF that was Kahmmhi's flagship, he wasn't sure that the Clan hadn't just bitten off more than they could chew.

'Get Seven up here now. I want her to help us identify what the hell it is that's moving through this system.'

Tuvok contacted Seven, and she showed up just a few minutes later. When she saw the scans of the Borg fleet, she stared at them in shock. Seven cubes, four planetary assimilation spheres, three system assimilation cubes. I've never seen one of them before. Three in one place at the same time? The Borg are seriously determined to assimilate whatever is inside this system, captain.'

'I got that impression. What can you tell me about them?'

'Nothing. Only that they are larger, stronger, and more powerful than almost any other ship that the Borg have. Borg drones aren't given information that they don't need for the proper performance of their assigned job, and I was never assigned to anything that was relevant to any of those areas.'

Janeway nodded. 'What do you think the chances are of Kahmmhi being able to pull this off?'

'I don't know. That is a lot of firepower, but she has range, stealth, and sheer firepower. She does have nine ships, and her smaller ships can also take out Borg ships.' Seven chuckled drily. 'Even her small craft are capable of destroying those ships if they can get the proper weapons deployed.'

'That's what I thought. I suppose that all we can do now is wait for them to get here and start things off.'

The hive queen was looking at her scans as the ships converged on the area where the anomaly was supposed to be centered. There was definitely something there, but it wasn't registering on their sensors properly. They could barely detect it at all, even with their ships dispersed to allow them to gather data from overlapping sensor arrays and different angles. They were closing on the unknown vessel, and there was nothing else in the system that even showed up as a fuzzy image or ghost on their sensors. It was alone.

'We are Borg. Prepare to be assimilated.'

Janeway smiled as the inevitable opening line came across her comm on the first transmission that the Borg had even bothered to make since they had entered the system.

'This is Captain Katherine Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager. We have dealt with the Borg before, and we do not wish to join your Collective. Stand down, or we will defend ourselves.'

'We are Borg. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilated.'

Tuvok looked up from his scans. 'The largest ships are powering up their shields and weapons. All of the Borg cubes out in front of them have already done so. They are moving to close on our position, and are using our transmissions to allow them to home in on our exact location, captain.'

Janeway looked at Chakotay. 'Kahmmhi said that that was going to happen.'

'She's been right on the money so far, captain. What do we do now?'

Janeway smiled. She was going to enjoy this. 'This is Captain Katherine Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager. I repeat, stand down or we will defend ourselves. I am required by our laws to warn you that we have the power to destroy your fleet in self defense, and that any actions that you take in this system may constitute an act of war against the Federation.'

Chakotay stared at her, trying not to laugh or show any real response to her statement. Janeway gave him a wink. She had said that it "MAY" constitute an act of war against the Federation, not that it would. Kahmmhi had actually pointed that out to her more than once when she had gone over this plan. Though Janeway knew that after the incident at Wolf 359, the Federation would have gone to war against the Borg even without the aid of the other members of the Alliance. They just weren't likely to go looking for the Borg instead of waiting for the Borg to come to them.

'We are Borg. We know of Voyager. Voyager is no threat to us. Resistance is futile. Pre...'

Janeway cut off the transmission. 'OK, enough of the broken record. That always gets on my nerves. So, Mr. Tuvok, what do we have?'

'They are still closing. I'm reading three million kliks to the nearest ships, and just over four million kliks to the larger ones behind them.' He saw her trying to do the math in her head and quickly added, 'It would take approximately fifty three seconds for the fastest railgun rounds to reach the farthest ships. The Borg would undoubtedly begin taking evasive action as soon as they detected any signs of a launch.'

Janeway nodded, wondering how Kahmmhi was going to handle that problem. She also wondered if Kahmmhi had a backup plan in case her first option didn't work out the way that she wanted it to.

'I don't want to waste my shots on those little buggers out front, so set them to activate after they've gone past them, and to only activate on mass greater than that.'

'Affirmative. That's simple enough to program in on the parameters. If it doesn't mass more than a freaking battlecruiser, ignore it. Those cubes aren't that big, and they're certainly not that massive.'

'Stagger the salvos, front guns only, and keep firing. Shift targets between shots. Use only the kinetic strike railguns.'

'Orders out and confirmed. Awaiting launch order.'

Kahmmhi smiled viciously. 'Start eliminating them.'

Virginia nodded, and the main railguns on her ship began firing in staggered sequence as the helmsman began moving the ship around so that each shot was going out at a different target. They were firing one shot every five seconds, so there were going to be ten shots in the air before the first one was supposed to detonate. After that, things would begin to get interesting.

Janeway was expecting the alarms, but she still jumped when they went off. Tuvok simply shut them off and began reporting calmly, acting as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

'They are firing single shots. One shot every five seconds, and they appear to be moving along different trajectories, though that is conjecture based on logic and very minute differences in the apparent position of the Clan ship when it is firing.'

Janeway nodded. 'What are the Borg doing?'

'They appear to be taking evasive action. They must have detected the initial launch of the weapons. The electromagnetic pulse IS quite distinctive, captain.'

'Yes, it is. How are they doing?'

'They are moving to change course and they appear to be trying to maintain an erratic, unpredictable pattern of movement that still allows them to constantly move toward our current position.'

'How long until we know whether the attack will have any success?'

'Thirty seconds to first impact, captain.'

The hive queen issued orders to begin evasive maneuvers as soon as the first pulse was detected. The enemy was stupid to think that this trick would work again. Now that they knew about their weapon, the Borg could easily take evasive action and avoid their missiles, no matter how fast they moved or how undetectable they were. They couldn't possibly have enough missiles to keep firing forever, and the Borg fleet would inexorably close with them until they were close enough to assimilate the enemy ship. The loss of a few ships wouldn't stop that from happening now. Assimilation was inevitable.

The first round missed the Borg planetary assimilation sphere by two hundred kliks. Unfortunately for the Borg, the round was a Q-bomb, and its blast radius was two hundred and fifty kliks. The onboard computer triggered the propagation wave and the bomb exploded at just the right time to catch the entire planetary assimilation sphere inside the sphere of the wave effect. The bonds between the quarks were dissolved for just an instant while the vibrational energy was increased exponentially by the propagation wave. In that split second, the vibrational energy of every atom of matter was released as the quarks lost their bonds and flew apart, leaving every bit of matter inside the bomb's field of effect nothing more than energy and subatomic particles. The Borg sphere disappeared in a gigantic blast that left no trace that it had ever existed.

The hive queen jerked as her connection to all of the drones on the vaporized ship suddenly ceased within a fraction of a microsecond. An immediate scan showed that one of her ships was missing. There was no trace of it, and nothing to indicate any way at all that it could have possibly been destroyed. This made no sense at all. It wasn't like either of the previous attacks, and yet it seemed to combine aspects of both of them. What kind of weapons and technology was this species using? None of this was in any of the Borg contacts with the humans or with Voyager previously. In fact, their species had no technology that any of this could even be based upon.

The hive queen aboard the scout sphere shook her head in dismay. The enemy was combining elements of their previous attacks, but their weapons were much more powerful than they had been previously. Yet the other hive queen was still doggedly trying to close on the target to assimilate it. She watched as two more ships were completely vaporized in the next twenty seconds.

'Two misses, three hits. Two of the big spheres, and one big cube. They're much better at evasive action than I thought they would be. And I'm pretty sure that they're going to become much better soon.'

'Bring us about. Rolling thunder. Canister AM rounds out of the large main RGs, and give me more two fifties out of the mediums. Give them a spread and hit them with a full salvo.'

Virginia nodded, and the ship was positioned in seconds. 'Ready on your command, Tahr Kahhni.'

'Hammer the bastards.'

The PUFF began one full revolution with its entire broadside batteries firing. At the end of one minute, there was one full broadside moving toward each of the areas where the remaining large Borg ships were and two moving toward the small Borg cubes.

Tuvok straightened up from his station and looked at Janeway in shock. 'They've just launched a massive barrage at the enemy. Six of them. One every ten seconds for the past minute.'

Tom looked up from his station. 'Rolling thunder. That is what the PUFF was designed for. A single ship like that can pump out a massive railgun barrage equal to the combined firepower of an enemy fleet.'

Janeway nodded, wondering where he had heard that, since it wasn't part of what they'd been told about the ship when they had visited Kahmmhi. Evidently, he was gathering a lot of trivial snippets of information during his time talking to the pilots and crews of the Clan small craft while he was learning about how they used their propulsion systems.

'Time to impact?'

'The first rounds should already be hitting their targets. We should see it any moment.'

The hive queen was startled by the sudden eruption of a massive spike of electromagnetic energy. It was orders of magnitude larger than the previous spikes, and was coming from a much larger area. The pulses seemed to be coming from all along an area that was more than forty kilometers long. But that was impossible. No ship was that large, and it was impossible to cloak anything that massive so completely that it couldn't be detected at all.

Before she could even figure out what was happening, two of the Borg cubes disappeared. As the second one disappeared in a blaze of antimatter, another planetary assimilation sphere disappeared without a trace.

'Evasive action now. Retreat. Go to...'

The system assimilation cube that the hive queen was on vaporized in a mixture of antimatter explosion and the wave of a Q-bomb explosion, with the Q-bomb actually obliterating both the matter and antimatter in the field of effect and eliminating it at the same time that the Borg ship vaporized.

The other hive queens aboard the other large ships were still trying to figure out their best course of action when the next two salvos hit their ships. One system assimilation cube was totally obliterated in a Q-bomb blast, and another planetary assimilation sphere was devastated by a large number of antimatter explosions that gutted it. The hive queen in the remaining planetary assimilation sphere didn't need to wait for consensus now because she was the only one left. She ordered her sphere to go to warp immediately. The ship did, but it was still caught in the blast radius of another Q-bomb just as it jumped to warp. The resultant smear of energy that it left across the system made for a beautiful light show on the Clan ships in the system. The Borg cubes began trying to run, but only three of them made it out of the system, and all three of them were heavily damaged.

The hive queen looked at the data that they had collected, then collated it with the data that had been collected by the sensors on board the three cubes that had made it out of the system. Some of their records were either damaged or corrupted, but they did give her more information than she had been able to gather from such a safe distance. The problem was that the information raised more questions than it answered.

First, the types of attacks seemed to be similar to the previous attacks, but yet they were different. And this last attack had been immensely more powerful than anything that the Borg had ever run into before.

Second, there was no way that Voyager could possibly have launched those attacks. There had to be some sort of weapons system that they couldn't detect in the system, or else there were more ships in the system with Voyager. Either way, the Borg had a problem, and trying to go in and attack Voyager using their standard tactics simply was NOT working.

She contacted the Collective and began relaying her report of what had just happened inside the target system while she was still moving her small fleet back away from the system to a safe distance.

Janeway and her entire crew were still in a state of shock. Seven of the largest Borg ships that they had ever seen had just been obliterated within just a few minutes time. And four Borg cubes had joined them in oblivion. The three Borg cubes that had run had still suffered heavy damage. And now there were numerous powerful explosions occurring across the system as the Clan sent out a signal that detonated all of the mines that they had launched that hadn't already found a target. It looked like fireworks against the black backdrop of space. Janeway couldn't help but see it as some grim celebration of the devastation that had just been wrought.

Tuvok began to report, but Janeway just shook her head and walked off of the bridge. It was satisfying in so many ways to see the Borg being beaten so easily, yet it was still disturbing to see that much power and violence unleashed on ANY beings, no matter who they were. She couldn't help wondering what kind of a universe it would be if everyone had to live like the Clan did, since their war seemed to encompass their entire galaxy at the very least. She quickly decided that she wouldn't like to live in that kind of universe, and that very few people in the Federation or the Alpha quadrant would be able to survive in it for very long at all. Except possibly as slaves to the Consortium.

When she got to her quarters, she contacted Kahmmhi.

'You don't look so good, captain.'

'I've never had to deal with total destruction and devastation on that kind of scale before. How do you do it?'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Where I come from, that would have been a minor skirmish at best. As for how we handle it, we do what we have to do for the sake of humanity, as well as what is required for our own survival. If we don't destroy the enemy, our families and everyone and everything that we hold dear will be destroyed.' She looked at Janeway, then shrugged. 'Some do it for duty, and some do it because it's what they are good at.'

'And your grandfather?'

'Kohl-garh thrives in the worst of combat. He seems to be able to do things better than anyone else in any of the Clans, and our enemy has no one who can rival him. For us, he is humanity's greatest hope of survival. For the enemy, he is the harbinger of their doom. If they can't destroy him, they will eventually lose their war, and they know it.'

'I'm glad that I don't live in your world, Tahr Kahhni.'

Kahmmhi laughed softly. 'Before I came here, I thought that I wasn't really cut out for combat simply because I would never be a good little ground pounder. I could never possibly measure up to anywhere near what my grandfather was, and I always thought that everyone expected me to be like him. Now I realize that they expect me to be the best leader and Clan warrior that I can be, and to live up to my own potential and goals and desires. Nothing more. And after seeing your world, I am truly grateful that I am Clan, captain. For after seeing how woefully unprepared your world is for real warfare, the idea of living in a place that dangerous that has no real warriors to protect the civilians from threats scares the hell out of me. Unfortunately, your world must soon become harder and more warlike if you truly want to have a chance for your civilizations to survive and flourish. There are way too many Borg and similar threats all around you for you to keep just barely surviving by the skin of your teeth and not taking the steps to make sure that you're prepared for the next attack before the very last possible moment.'

Janeway nodded. 'Unfortunately, you're right. I can see that, and I hope that the Federation and their allies have seen that. If they haven't, I'm certainly going to do my best to make sure that they do once we return to the Alpha quadrant.'

'You'll do, captain. And if it makes you feel any better, my grandfather isn't a totally heartless, cruel, unfeeling bastard, either. I can see the pain in his eyes after he comes out of combat when he's had to kill so many by his own hand, and even more when he's had to kill millions or billions by other methods. But he deals with it.'

'How?'

'Think of your culture, your people, your family, and everything that you love and care about. You're not the aggressor who is trying to assimilate the Borg, are you?'

'No. Of course not. We believe in peaceful exploration.'

'We were never given that option. Survival is the bottom line, captain. Do you survive, or do the Borg? While you might mourn the loss of the Borg, they don't mourn the loss of their drones or their ships, and they wouldn't even care if your entire civilization disappeared so long as they assimilated what they wanted and you weren't a threat to them. Correct?'

'Yeah.'

'That is the difference between you and them. You're human. They're not. If you were at war with them right now, and they suddenly stopped and asked for peace, you'd agree. That is the difference. They think that they have the right to simply take what they want, destroy anything that they perceive as a threat, and do what they want with any species that they run across.'

Janeway smiled. 'Thanks for talking to me. At least now I feel better about what I just saw. I've just never seen anyone die like that before. Erased as if they never existed simply because, in one brief instant, everything that they are or ever were simply ceases to exist and nothing can even be found of them to prove that they ever existed.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Before we came here and fought at DS9, neither had I, captain. But I felt great relief when I watched the home planet of the Founders and all of the vast fleets that they had in orbit, preparing to invade the Alpha quadrant, all vanish in a flash as the sunbuster that vaporized their planet destroyed them all before they even knew what was happening to them. I knew that I'd not only done something to keep the people that I knew about at DS9 safe, but that I was also making it safer for the people in this quadrant who had been under their control as slaves of the Dominion. Others might take their place, but eventually they would find out what had happened to the Founders, and then they would worry that the same thing would happen to them.' She smiled. 'Fear is a great weapon, and it truly motivates those who would be tyrants as nothing else possibly can. I know that we can't stay here and fight the Borg until we wipe them out, but I can give the Borg one thing that they seem to have lost in their efforts to achieve machine perfection. They not only lost their humanity, but they also lost their primal fear response. I'm going to make sure that they learn to fear something before we leave.'

Janeway nodded as Kahmmhi smiled sadly and cut the connection. She believed that Kahmmhi was definitely going to make the Borg fear something before she left. If she was the Borg, she'd already be having nightmares about what was happening in this system. She was fairly certain that the Borg were beginning to learn to fear something, but right now, they weren't sure exactly what it was that they were afraid of. Before this was over, she was fairly certain that Kahmmhi would have given the Borg something very specific to be very afraid of.

Janeway spent the next several weeks immersing herself in the details of the changes that were being made to her ship, trying to think about her ship and the technology that the Clan used, rather than the brief, very violent engagements that they had been having with the Borg. And there was a lot of work to keep up with, since it seemed like the Clan was reworking her entire ship from stem to stern in one way or another. They had finished installing the gravitic drives, but B'elana still hadn't tested them yet because they hadn't finished putting in all of the structural reinforcements, inertial compensators, or hull armor. Technically they could move before the hull armor was installed, but it would limit their top speed if they didn't want to risk causing structural damage and hull breaches. And they definitely did NOT want to risk ANY travel through hyper before their armor upgrades were completed. The idea of any stray antimatter particles getting through their shields and contacting her current hull armor gave Janeway nightmares. They only got worse when she imagined the size of some of the chunks of antimatter that lined the walls of a hyper stream. There were actually rocks and boulders, and not just the small chunks and dust-like particles that the Federation had been able to find.

In addition to going over all of the daily reports and details of construction projects with B'elana to keep up with what was happening to her ship, Janeway still held her weekly staff meetings to make sure that she kept up with everything else that was going on.

'How are your projects coming, Mr. Paris?'

'Now that B'elana isn't needed to supervise any of the work down in engineering, they're starting to convert all of our shuttlecraft and make all of the modifications that we've discussed.'

'And how is that work coming along?'

'They've finished the long range shuttles already, and they are ready for us to use any time that we wish. They upgraded our gravitic drive, replacing it with two of their gravitic drives made out of materials that are very similar to our own, but with some modifications from their technology to improve the overall efficiency. We've got an auxiliary power system for life support and basic functions that's about as powerful as our old main system was, another auxiliary power system that provides power only to the weapons systems, and a third auxiliary power system that is dedicated to providing power only to the shields. Our shields have been strengthened, and they've improved our stealth systems. We have two side mounted lasers facing forward, and another pair facing aft that are made according to Clan designs. They say that they're similar to what they call spinal lasers that are on their small craft. Their range is greater than the phasers on Voyager. About half a million kliks. And we've got twenty centimeters of tohlvyhn armor. I don't even know how to begin to describe it properly.'

B'elana sighed. 'It's some type of three dimensional honeycomb pattern that's interwoven at the molecular level, making it much stronger than anything that we've ever seen. One reason that we can't use any of the materials that they do is that they're completely unknown metals or alloys. Once they're actually made, we can't even scan them well enough to determine their actual atomic structure. We can make more of that type of armor by using the synthesizers that they're giving us, but it's very energy intensive, and we can't make stronger materials like that without having better materials to start with.'

Seven shook her head. 'What she is saying, captain, is that it is better than anything that we've ever been capable of producing, and far beyond anything that the Borg or anyone else that we know of can make, but it is still several steps below what the Clan would consider adequate for combat armor.'

Janeway looked at B'elana questioningly, and B'elana nodded and looked down, appearing embarrassed. 'Yes, sir. That's correct. We COULD try to make some of the armor that they have, but even small amounts would require enormous amounts of time and energy to construct them from the subatomic level, and our technology couldn't do it. Their synthesizers CAN do it if we want to take that long and we can provide that much energy, but it's very prohibitive.'

Janeway shook her head, trying not to smile. 'And what about the other shuttles, Tom?'

'They're smaller, and we've worked with the Clan engineers on the space restrictions. We can get two smaller gravitic drives in them, so they won't be quite as fast as our long range shuttles are. And while they will have the same number and type of auxiliary power systems in them, they can't make the ships as fast without giving up something. So the armor is only ten centimeters thick, and it's made of duranium that is formed into that three dimensional lattice that the Clan uses to make their armor stronger.'

'How strong is it?'

'Probably stronger than about three times as much duranium would be otherwise.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that it would take a lot for any type of energy weapon that the Federation had ever encountered before meeting the Clan to get through a foot of duranium or its equivalent.

B'elana looked at Janeway. 'We're not using standard parts, and they have to custom make everything for each ship, so it will take a few more weeks to finish armoring all of the standard shuttles. In the meantime, we're sending them over two at a time for the work to be done on them so that we retain most of our shuttles on board Voyager, just in case we need to use them for something.'

Janeway nodded. They were getting things done on schedule, even with the problems of being interrupted every time that the Borg came into the system and attacked, though she couldn't really say that the Clan engineers and construction people had ever stopped working, even during the last Borg attack. They had seemed to think that it was a minor skirmish of no real consequence. She supposed that, from the Clan's viewpoint, it was. It certainly didn't begin to compare in either scope or intensity to any of the Clan battles that she had seen in the vids that they had been given. Now that she knew the scale of the ships in question, all of the other battles that they had seen had dwarfed the battle with Dominion forces that had occurred at DS9.

'How much longer are we going to be stuck in this system according to the current projections?'

'About another month, possibly two. The armor on the ship includes putting in the new laser batteries and all of the stealth emitters. They have to construct them according to our methods, alter them slightly, and then tune them to perform properly for our ship. That could add another week or two to the time frame, so that's why the possible two months estimate.'

Janeway nodded. That would still put them ahead of the initial estimates that Kahmmhi had given her, and they could then test their new drives and see if they could use hyper to get back to the Alpha quadrant. If they could, she could have her entire command back in Federation space within just a few years. That would be much better than the decades that it would take for them to travel there at their best warp speed.

'Very well. Dismissed. Let me know if there are any new developments in things that might change when we can finally get out of here and resume our journey back home.'

The hive queen couldn't believe that the Collective was being so singleminded in their viewpoint concerning this new technology. Yes, it could provide them with an enormous advantage over almost every single species that they had ever encountered, and it would make it possible for them to win their war against the species that lived in subspace much quicker and more simply than their best projections to date had indicated were possible. But there was a definite risk to continuing to pursue this particular goal. Whether this truly was Voyager and they had discovered some unknown and exceedingly powerful alien technology, or whether it was someone else, they were dangerous, and the Collective was definitely risking making an enemy of a very powerful unknown force. At the rate their current war was going, the Collective didn't need to be making any more new enemies. Even if they didn't know about each other or cooperate, their combined efforts could overwhelm the Collective.

The queen carefully considered all of the data that she had been able to gather, trying to make all of the pieces fit. Something was missing. Janeway was a formidable warrior, but she wouldn't simply stay in one spot like this between battles unless she had some reason to remain inside this system. Her previous behavior patterns all indicated that she should have left this system before the last attack occurred. Yet she was still here. That could only mean that there was something inside that system that was important to Janeway or her ship.

And the queen had some other problems with what had been happening inside this system, too. There was no reason for some of the responses that had been occurring. The first Borg attack had been totally obliterated. That made sense. Destroy the three cubes that were closer, and use that to prove that you were a threat and that you didn't want to be assimilated. Many life forms would do that if they had the capabilities. Many of them had done exactly that at one point or another, but they were all eventually assimilated. Nothing could stand forever in the face of vastly overwhelming superiority in resources and technology.

The second encounter made no sense. They had to know that the Borg hadn't learned enough about their new weapon during their first attack to neutralize it, and yet they refused to use it again. Instead, they had used a different, more powerful weapon. And again, it appeared to have come from a single ship. It was as if the enemy was baiting them and trying to get the Borg to commit more forces to assimilating whatever was inside this system by showing them just enough to let them know that there were even better and more important technologies here to be assimilated. And again, all of the largest ships were destroyed, and all of the smaller ships were damaged this time.

Which only made the third encounter even more confusing. This time Janeway had identified herself and her ship, taunting them and challenging them to assimilate what she had. Then the first phase of the attack had been even more powerful than before, combining both of the previous attacks and still making them seem weak in comparison. When the Borg had started to adapt and evade their attacks, the enemy had suddenly revealed the presence of what had to be another weapons system that had overwhelmed the vast, powerful fleet before they could realize the danger that they were in. Three system assimilation cubes, four planetary assimilation spheres, and four cubes had been destroyed, leaving her with just three badly damaged cubes in need of major repairs.

Now the three remaining cubes were fully repaired, and so were all three of the scout spheres. That was all that was left of a massive, unbelievably powerful Borg fleet that should have been capable of assimilating this entire region of the Delta quadrant, given enough time. But now the Borg knew that Janeway was definitely here, and that she was definitely not alone. They didn't know who was with her, helping her with her attacks, but they were extremely devious and very clever. Very good at springing ambushes without any warning, and at hiding their fleet and their presence. The Borg had nothing that could even begin to detect their ship or whatever weapons platform they were using, though they could at least detect some of their attacks in one form or another. Not that it actually helped them do anything to negate the effectiveness of those attacks.

The hive queen began thinking things over very carefully, then contacted the Collective as she reached her conclusion. This was some sort of trap. Someone was trying to ambush the Borg forces by luring them here with their new technology. The Collective had to be warned so that they didn't risk even more forces in this system. Whoever this new enemy was, they were capable of doing much more to the Borg than they were letting on, and they seemed to be getting more and more destructive with each encounter.

When the Collective heard the conclusions that the hive queen had reached, her conclusions were subjected to analysis and then her logic was determined to be flawed. She would watch the enemy while their new force approached, and then she was to watch as they were assimilated and added to the Collective. Then she would be eliminated as flawed and replaced with a new hive queen who wasn't afraid to assimilate whatever enemies she encountered. As the meeting ended, the hive queen realized that her days were numbered, but there was nothing else for her to do. She was Borg, and the Collective had reached consensus, even if she knew it to be flawed.

Janeway and several of her officers were checking out the new shuttles to determine exactly what their overall capabilities were, as well as how they performed and handled during both normal flight and evasive maneuvers. They were moving around the system at much better than the best speed that a shuttle could normally manage with impulse engines, and they were in constant contact with Voyager. So far, they were completely undetectable by the best sensors that Voyager had, even when Voyager was given their position and they focused all of their scans on the area.

'They are fast, and they are much more maneuverable than any shuttle or ship that I've ever flown.'

'Yes, Tom, but how are they at combat?'

Paris smiled and moved toward a small asteroid. They were still outside of phaser range when he fired their lasers and totally obliterated the target.

Janeway nodded. 'Impressive.'

'They're set up exactly like the Clan's lasers are. Cyclic at varying frequencies that are randomly generated, and even the frequency on the other laser is different. They're never firing on the same frequency at the same time. Just to make sure that one of them is guaranteed to be able to penetrate any energy shield that has been modulated to negate the other laser's frequency.'

Seven smiled at Janeway. 'The Clan seems to have been very attentive when they were listening to experts in the Federation when they described Borg technology, capabilities, and tactics. They have already done all of the modifications to their own weapons and tactics in order to negate all of the normal Borg tactics that they possibly could.'

Janeway nodded. 'One thing that the Clan seems to be very good at is waging warfare.'

Seven raised an eyebrow and said very drily, 'That, captain, is definitely an understatement.'

'So, these shuttles seem to perform beyond our best expectations.'

'Yes, captain. They are much better than anything that I've ever seen before.' Paris was very enthusiastic.

Seven shook her head, adding drily, 'Then you should look at the archived material that the Clan has provided us with. Their small craft significantly outperform even our long range shuttles. They are faster, more heavily armed, more heavily armored, and they are much larger and have more capacity. Even their smallest fighters are capable of operating and performing well beyond our capabilities.'

Paris nodded. 'That's true. According to some of the pilots that I've been talking to, our ships are more like their ancient six man fighters that they first developed several thousand years ago, though we do have a bit more firepower than they did. They lacked lasers, and relied upon missiles and railguns for offensive and defensive purposes. They were about as fast and as maneuverable as this shuttle is, though.'

Janeway looked over at him, interested in what she was hearing. 'And how long ago did they stop using those fighters, Tom?'

'Um, that depends on the Clan, sir. For Clan Phoenix, the Clan that did the most improvements and research and development on their weapons and technology, they stopped using them maybe about five hundred years ago. They had hit a plateau in their technological development, and couldn't improve their small fighters significantly for about two thousand years before that time.'

'And since they found out how to overcome that limitation?'

'They've improved their fighters several different times in the past five hundred years. They can improve them even more by simply using better armor than they currently use, but their enemy can't hit their fighters often enough to do much damage right now, so it's not economical in terms of resources to do that yet. Though I heard that they do have some fighters that have heavier and better armor for special missions where they are more likely to be taking damage from the enemy. It limits the damage, the injuries or deaths among the crews of those ships, and their losses in combat.'

Janeway nodded. She was well aware that the Clan didn't consider it wasteful to armor ships for special missions, and that they did everything that they could to limit the casualty rate among their troops. Resources could be replaced, but troops could not. That was one Clan saying that she agreed with wholeheartedly. She'd already lost too many members of her crew and had to write too many letters to their families since coming to the Delta quadrant, and she couldn't think of anything that she liked less than losing crew members.

'I still can't believe how responsive this shuttle is.' Paris executed some maneuvers, but Janeway didn't feel any acceleration or change in their relative position at all.

'What did we just do that impresses you so much, Mr. Paris?'

Tom pulled up a diagram of their position and showed it to scale. Janeway's eyebrows arched as she realized that they had just executed some maneuvers that were physically impossible. Just the inertia and their change in position should have thrown them all over the shuttle, or at least seriously stressed the restraints that held them in their seats. Unlike Federation shuttles, the Clan had included restraints on all of the seats inside the shuttles that had been reworked.

'That is impossible. Some of those maneuvers defy the laws of physics. Inertia, conservation of momentum...'

'That is what the inertial compensators are for, captain. The shuttles are small enough that they were able to reinforce everything on the ship, so if we don't blow our inertial compensators, the gravitic drives provide the power to allow all kinds of maneuvers that are simply impossible with other propulsion systems. They put in some limiters to keep us from accidentally overloading our compensators, or even overloading our bodies with too many G's. They did that as a safety measure because we aren't Alphas and because all that we have right now are the built in compensators that are part of the gravitic drive itself. It stores the change in inertial energy and uses it to build power to the other systems and generate the repulsion or attraction for the new heading.'

Janeway blinked at him.

Seven smiled, realizing the captain's reaction wasn't unusual. 'The Clan has actual inertial compensators that bleed the energy from the inertial changes back into their system and they gradually use it elsewhere if it's not used immediately. Their compensators can take a lot more stress than the systems that we have because we don't have fully functioning inertial compensators in our shuttle.'

'Why not?'

'Because it's on the restricted list, captain.' He blushed at Janeway's expression.

Seven sighed. 'Perhaps B'elana can answer you more appropriately, captain.'

Janeway looked at B'elana. 'Well? Can you explain it better?'

B'elana sighed. 'OK. It's kind of technical, but I'll do my best to simplify everything to make it quick and simple. Our gravitic drives have some ability to act as inertial compensators by using the energy that they take from one maneuver and apply it toward providing the energy for a different maneuver. It's absorbed, then transferred to the drive controls to input the energy required to make immediate changes. Sharp maneuvers are more energy intensive in some ways because the inertia has to be overcome.'

Janeway nodded. 'The gravitic drives don't really require almost any energy to operate, but they do have some requirements for rapid changes in vector or speed. I got that part when we were developing our own drives.'

'Yes. Well, the Clan has taken that and gone a step further, captain. Inertial compensators absorb the energy that would stress the hull or cause other problems, including what we would consider major stresses from impacts or sudden maneuvers. They use that energy to maintain the artificial gravity and keep everything within their field from experiencing ANY of the normal sensations or forces that would have been exerted upon them. As long as the stresses don't exceed the limitations of the inertial compensator, or the compensator doesn't fail, you can't tell that anything has happened.'

Paris nodded. 'Clan troops are used to sudden jerks associated with some types of impacts, especially their assault troops. That isn't really a system failure. Compensators sometimes allow you to feel things that happen so suddenly and so dramatically that it even exceeds the ability of the compensators to fully compensate for the change in velocity or direction. Pilots who feel that in a fighter know that they just took a hit that stressed their compensator and almost killed them. Their crew chief checks their compensators immediately and replaces any of them that are likely to fail if they get hit like that again. Or replaces one of the compensators that failed, and the jerk is the other compensators taking up the slack when one failed. There is sometimes a slight time lag between a failure and the other compensators being able to handle the sudden, unexpected increase in power requirements.'

Janeway stared at him. 'How many inertial compensators do their ships have?'

'Small craft only require one, but most of the smallest Clan craft still have two or three compensators running at all times. Some of the ships, such as their HATs, typically have even more than that, and all of their small craft carry several spares at all times. Their recon craft and long range shuttles can even use their synthesizers to manufacture replacements if that becomes necessary, but it's really energy intensive.'

Janeway nodded. The Clan believed in safeguards and backup systems, and they used both extensively. She would say that they used them extensively on their warships, but since they were even more concerned about the survival of their families and civilian population than they were about their warships, their population ships were even more heavily armored and better defended than any of their warships were.

'Does anyone know what it is that Kahmmhi has planned for a few hours from now?'

One look around the shuttle told Janeway that nobody else had any more of a clue than she did.

'Yeah, I thought as much. She can be very secretive when she wants to be. Though from what I've been told, her grandfather makes her look absolutely outgoing, friendly, and talkative.'

Paris chuckled. 'I've heard some comments about that, captain. From what some of the Clan members say, when he's in combat and not giving orders that are necessary, her grandfather makes her Shadows look like they talk too much.'

Janeway nodded, declining to comment. Most of the time, Kahmmhi's Shadows didn't talk almost at all, other than what was required for their job. And as far as she could tell, their entire job consisted simply of keeping Kahmmhi alive and protected from all threats.

Janeway and the others were relaxed and calm when Paris landed their shuttle on board the Rolling Thunder for their visit with Kahmmhi. When they disembarked, Kahmmhi and her Shadows were waiting for them in the shuttle bay.

'I really wouldn't have had you come here, but I wanted to spend some time with you and give you a chance to relax. I know that there is still so much going on aboard Voyager during the refit that you couldn't really relax completely while you're there.'

Janeway smiled sheepishly. 'It seems that you know me too well, Kahmmhi.'

'I know how I am, especially now that all of my people are my responsibility and we are stranded, far from home, with no one to rely upon other than ourselves until we get back to our Clan.'

Janeway nodded. She and Kahmmhi had a lot in common. Neither of them had expected what had happened to their ships, and neither had ever been trained to handle the situations that they were suddenly forced to face by circumstances and fate. But they had both survived the challenges so far, and they both intended to do so in the future as well.

'We just received some information from our outermost sensors, and it appears that there is another Borg force moving toward this system. It should arrive within a week, possibly two at most.'

Janeway looked at Kahmmhi intently. 'How could you possibly know that there is another Borg force that far away? You don't have any sensors out that far to give you an early warning.'

Kahmmhi smiled, looking almost embarrassed. 'Well, we didn't. Our initial systems were set up by our small craft, and were more of a short range warning system for this particular system. But we decided to try out a new type of probe that we developed simply because of the way that the civilizations in this area seem to rely upon the warp drives that you use.'

Janeway was very interested now. 'Right after the second Borg force showed up, we used our main railguns to launch some sensors in a spread pattern around the general direction that they were using on their approach to this system to increase our coverage. They've been expanding outward from this system at zero point two five c for some time now. Far enough to give us coverage that is farther out than our last line of sensors.'

'That still wouldn't allow you to know that a Borg force was coming while they were still more than a week away at high warp speed.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'No, it wouldn't. However, we also left comsats in all of the systems that we've explored in the Delta quadrant, and we while we normally use them to communicate with other ships, they also have sensors in them that can report specific types of events. We've just received a signal that the comsat in the system where we first detected Borg traveling through their transwarp conduits has detected another large group of ships moving through the transwarp conduit in that area. That means that they should be coming this way, and so far all of their forces have taken between one and two weeks to travel that distance, once we allow for the time that it took for our signal to get here.'

Seven was very impressed with the way that the Clan had used remote detection to give them the earliest possible warning of the impending approach of the Borg vessels.

'Do you have any idea how many ships they are sending, or what types?'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'We can't be exact on that because we haven't really had a way to determine how to make the readings more accurate, and we don't know exactly how to detect them at that distance and tell their ships apart. What we do know is that there are about three dozen ships on their way in this general direction, and the only ships that we've ever detected using that method of travel are all Borg.'

Janeway nodded. 'Oh, yeah. Whoever they got the technology off of, we've never discovered anyone who heard of them. Only the Borg use transwarp to go even faster than they can in real space using maximum warp speed.' She sighed. 'We're not going to be ready to leave this system by then, are we?'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'No. There are still several more weeks of construction to complete before we could even begin preliminary testing to see if your ship could handle the stresses of traveling through hyperspace. It probably won't be too long after this attack occurs before we can begin preparations to leave this system, but unless they wait several weeks before making their approach, I don't see us getting out of here before the next encounter.'

Janeway sighed. 'That's what I was afraid of. They've been sending much larger and more powerful fleets each time that they come. What if they sent something that you can't handle this time?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Trust me, captain, your ship and your crew aren't going to be in danger this time. When the Borg come into the system and try to begin their attack, I intend to drop stealth on all of our ships so that they can see them and realize that they are outmatched. Then, if they are still stupid enough to attack, we're going to show them how the Clan truly fights in fleet combat against their enemies, and why nobody in their right mind actually WANTS to attack the Clans.'

Janeway nodded. 'And what are we supposed to do?'

'Well, we've started armoring your ship, but we still haven't gotten the armor completed. So you don't have the full shield emitters or the lasers that we were going to install on your hull armor. That means that you won't have any weapons that can match the range that we intend to keep the enemy at during combat.' Kahmmhi smiled. 'So I guess that means that you and your crew will just have to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show if the Borg actually do attack one more time.'

'And if we have to run to avoid being caught in the combat?'

'Well, your warp engines will still function, and so will your gravitic engines. We can always find you and finish the construction after the battle is completed.' Kahmmhi looked at Janeway very seriously. 'We are going to do everything that we can to make sure that doing something like that isn't necessary, but you are in control of your ship, so I understand completely if you feel threatened and you wish to leave the system until the combat is over, captain. Even when we finish arming and armoring it, your ship would still be considered too small, too weak, and too poorly armed to remain in a system during fleet combat. At least, by our standards.'

Janeway didn't take offense at Kahmmhi's statement at all. Voyager was a science vessel, and had never been intended to be a warship, and even by Federation standards, no warship ever produced could be considered worthy of fleet combat by Clan standards. Hell, she wasn't sure that the Clan would consider one of the Klingon battleships, or even a Klingon dreadnought, to be a warship by their standards.

'I'm not going to plan on leaving the system, but if things start to get hectic or dangerous, I will certainly consider the option.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Fair enough, captain.' She smiled and looked at the others. 'So, you all look like you could use a day off. How would you like to enjoy some time celebrating with us?'

'Celebrating?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Yes. We're celebrating the oldest Clan holiday that there is. One year after one of my grandmothers married my grandfather, the first and only Clan at that time officially celebrated their first original Clan holiday. My grandfather was constantly being teased by his wives about making Independence Day fall on his youngest wife's birthday just to keep her happy.'

'His youngest wife? How old was she?'

'She turned seventeen on the day that the fighting ended and they finally seized control of the ship that they were on. She and another grandmother who wasn't a wife at the time were both very young by Clan standards. Even then, when everyone who was human counted their age in Earth years instead of Clan years. Llyriana have a much longer year. Lisa was seventeen that day, and Dana was still about thirteen, maybe fourteen by then. They led one of the units into combat, and made sure that the enemy troops weren't able to outflank our positions and come after our civilians during the combat.'

Janeway nodded, realizing how young some of the early Clan members had been during the start of their war.

B'elana looked amazed. 'The Clan actually let a fourteen year old girl fight in combat?'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Technically, by our calendar now, she would have been twelve at the time. She was always unique in so many ways. The two of them are almost always together, and they command a platoon of Scouts.'

'OK. I've heard of Assault Marines and Raiders, but what are Scouts?'

'They go in ahead of the main forces and do scouting, usually operating behind enemy lines. They were doing that both on ships and on planets long before we ever discovered how to conceal our troops with chameleon armor.' Kahmmhi laughed. 'My grandfather used to tease them about how they were considered death wraiths by the enemy long before they ever started calling their entire Clan Death Wraiths. Both of my grandmothers just considered that a compliment to their skills and abilities.'

Janeway nodded as they all followed Kahmmhi down the corridors toward the nearest rec area. When they entered, everyone from Voyager stopped and stared in shock at the sight they found. There were thousands of Clan members going around in very informal attire. Most of them were female, and they were dressed in very skimpy, revealing, loose, flowing robes made of silk or some similar material that showed their bodies off as much or more than they actually concealed them from view. The entire place was one big party, with people eating, drinking, relaxing, and enjoying all kinds of games and recreational activities. Some of them looked very familiar, and others were totally unknown.

'Wow. There are a lot of activities going on.'

'Yeah, grandma's birthday is always chaos.'

'What are some of the activities? Some of them look familiar, but others...'

'Wheelbarrow racing, three legged race, and the dunking booths are popular among the young people and those who are interested in adding another female to their household. Some of the contests of strength are popular among the young men who are trying to impress a female that they're interested in or who are just competitive. Those would include wrestling, arm wrestling, some of the climbing events. Then there are the tests of skill. Knife throwing and a few others are still used at the events like this. But we don't have any of the real skill contests during celebrations any more. Shooting, archery, and other events like that are held in a much more competitive and controlled atmosphere, as are the contests for swordsmanship and the like.'

'OK.' None of the crew from Voyager really knew how to respond to that answer. It seemed as if even Clan sports were nothing more than training exercises for their warriors.

'You're free to wander around, mingle, meet people, and sample any of the foods that we have here. I'm pretty sure that they're all safe for humans, though B'elana might have trouble with a few things because of her unique physiology. We did test food safety for some of the Romulans and Klingons while we were at DS9, but we didn't have any halflings there, so I don't know how her systems work compared to yours or theirs.'

Janeway and the others nodded. B'elana didn't take offense at being called a "halfling" by Kahmmhi. In the Clan, that was just a descriptor that let you know that while they might look human, they weren't exactly human. And Kahmmhi herself was a "halfling", though technically she was just one fourth Llyriana. With her slender build, large firm breasts, and pointed ears, she looked almost Vulcan.

'Why don't you all relax and enjoy yourselves, and meet back here when you really get hungry and we'll all have some food together. I know that B'elana can eat some of the foods that are traditional for a barbecue, and my mother always insisted on having a barbecue at this celebration. Sort of a family tradition ever since the end of the first Clan year.'

Janeway and the others nodded, then left to enjoy themselves. Janeway went off with Chakotay to see what they could find. Tuvok went off to explore on his own. Seven went off by herself. And Tom and B'elana went off to see how Clan couples spent their holiday together. They were very interested in Clan courting rituals and the way that Clan members did things that weren't related to their fixation on warfare.

By the time that they all returned for dinner, everyone had seen a lot more about Clan life than they had managed to learn about in all of their previous interactions with the Clan. If they had thought that the entire Clan took warfare seriously, they had just discovered that they definitely took their relaxation and down time just as seriously, if not more so.

'They party until they drop. Literally, in some cases.'

Kahmmhi laughed at Chakotay's bemused expression. 'It relieves stress.'

'Yeah, I suppose that it does.'

B'elana snickered. 'That's not the only way that they relieve stress. Did you go by the dunking booths? Some of those girls were actually up there naked, and they were being very explicit and graphic about exactly what they were offering the guy that they were taunting.'

'If any of the females were being that obvious, you'll probably see some of them on stage later, when they tie the silks officially. This celebration is a very popular time to get married. You can't possibly forget your anniversary when it's the same as the most important celebration in our culture.'

Tom nodded. 'That would keep the guys out of trouble, since they couldn't forget to get the wife an anniversary present.'

'Wives, you mean.' B'elana smiled as she gauged Tom's reaction.

'Oh, no. One is more than enough for me. If I had more than one wife, I don't think that I'd survive to grow old with them.'

Janeway chuckled at the look that B'elana gave him. She might only be half Klingon, but she was very strong for her size. Nowhere near as strong as even a small Clan female, but she was still very much stronger than the average human male.

'Yes, we've seen quite a few things today that we had no idea about previously.' She patted her stomach and smiled. 'And we've tasted some foods that we'd never imagined before, either.'

B'elana nodded. She'd known about the rich chocolates that the Clan females ate, but she'd never tasted anything like the barbecue roasted chyrrka. 'That chyrrka is great. What kind of animal is it from?'

'About a ten foot tall thing that looks like a smelly, hairy spider. They smell really rank when they're wet, and they live in areas that are natural swamps. They sometimes hunt in packs.'

B'elana looked dubious. 'You're kidding, right?'

Brynhe shook her head and held out her comp. 'That's a picture of a chyrrka in the wild. We had to wade through that bloody swamp and smell those things every day while we were on that bloody rock. And if you think that they smell bad when they're alive, the one thing that chyrrka and Graks have in common is that they smell even worse after they're dead than they did when they're alive. And the bloody hot sun doesn't help with the decomp, either.'

Janeway and the others looked at the picture. B'elana shrugged. 'Oh, well. All I care about is that they taste great.'

Tom nodded. He'd long since learned to eat what was safe to eat, no matter how it looked. There were some Klingon dishes that humans could eat, and B'elana ate them whenever she could. Some of them looked really bad, but most of them tasted pretty good if you didn't look at what it was that you were eating. Of course, he never let B'elana know that he felt that way, since her sharing those dishes with him was something that she considered very private and intimate. It exposed her feelings in ways that she didn't want others to know about. He supposed that most, if not all, Klingons were like that.

'So, how did you enjoy your day?'

'It was great. We enjoyed it very much. Thanks for having us.'

'You're very welcome, captain. I'd offer to let you all spend the night, but I'm not sure that you'd appreciate it, since our nights get a bit cold for your tastes.'

Janeway laughed. 'Your nights get a bit cold for anyone's tastes. But if you are actually offering, we'd be very happy to accept your hospitality. I don't know about the others, but StarFleet definitely put convenience over a number of other things when they came up with the sonic showers. I can't believe how wonderful your hot showers feel after a long, cold night on board a Clan ship.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'Yeah, a good, long, hot shower feels great after you've spent a week fighting inside your armor, too. Very well. Will you need two rooms, or three?'

'Three?' Janeway looked at her curiously, wondering why she would think that they'd need three rooms.

'Um, well, we weren't sure about your customs, and I know that it's not strictly against StarFleet regulations for officers to fraternize with each other...'

Janeway looked over at Tom and B'elana. 'Well, I suppose that I should allow the two of you to determine the proper response to her question.'

The two of them looked at each other, then shrugged. 'Three.'

Chakotay grinned. 'Well, then, I suppose that I'll be bunking with Mr. Tuvok and we'll have the bed to ourselves, since I doubt that Seven wishes to spend the night discussing scientific findings with him.'

Seven gave him a very droll look, then shook her head. Tuvok simply lifted an eyebrow and frowned slightly. 'I fail to see the humor in that statement, commander.'

Janeway smiled, since neither of them was drawing the obvious conclusion that he was hinting that he'd spend the night with her. While she might not disapprove of the idea, putting it into practice while they were still stuck here in the Delta quadrant would be highly problematic, to say the least.

Kahmmhi and her Shadows just chuckled. 'Three it is, then. I'll leave you to your own devices, then, and you can find your quarters whenever you are ready to either go to them or go to bed.'

Kahmmhi and her Shadows left, and the six of them were left alone with two Llyriana from the bodyguard. They would remain nearby and then show them to their quarters whenever they decided that they wanted to call it a night and retire.

If Tom had thought that B'elana was clinging to him for warmth during the night, he discovered exactly how much of a hedonist she was in the shower the next morning. The water was steaming, and the shower was hot as a sauna, yet she insisted that he massage her and rub her all over to make sure that she was warm all over and her muscles were loosened up.

'You are such a hedonist.'

'I can't help it. It's cold, and the water feels really good.' She grinned. 'Though I won't say that the physical attention doesn't feel good as well.'

Once they finished in the shower, they got dressed very quickly and went to find the others. They were all eating breakfast with Kahmmhi and Virginia in Kahmmhi's quarters when the two of them arrived.

'So, you finally managed to drag her out of the shower?'

Paris stared at Janeway. 'How did you know that's what took us so long?'

'She was the first one awake the last time we were here, and she stayed in the shower longer than anyone. And, as I recall, you thought that the showers were a waste of resources and energy, since sonic showers were much more convenient.'

Paris laughed. 'She's trying to convert me to her way of thinking, and I have to admit, she's doing a very good job of making the idea very appealing.'

They sat down to eat, and nobody said anything about the heavy meal except to make comments on how good the food was. After a long, cold night aboard a Clan ship, you needed a good, long hot shower and a good, hot meal just to recover.

'So, we have one week, two tops, before the Borg should arrive in system if they're headed here.'

'Yeah. We'll do what we can to make sure that your ship is as well armored as we can make it by that time, just in case they get any shots off. I'm not sure how well your shield emitters are going to hold up, if you can even get them running by then, since they're not in place right now because of the armoring. Temporary jobs like that are typically not going to stand up to much abuse.'

Janeway nodded. 'I think that we'll have to rely on our stealth and the armor, without any shields at all. If you keep them far enough from our position, it won't really matter anyway.'

Kahmmhi nodded. Virginia smiled. 'We'll do our best, captain.'

'Captain, we have to worry about Borg beaming onto our ship if they try to come close and attack us that way.'

Janeway nodded. 'Seven is correct. If they beam aboard, we don't have a full crew, and it will be hard to make sure that we find them before they can begin trying to convert at least some of my crew into Borg drones.'

'We'll provide some troops to make sure that doesn't happen, captain. I think that a few platoons could cover a large area of your ship and help your security people make sure that something like that doesn't happen.'

Janeway nodded, smiling appreciatively. 'Thank you. That would be a very big help, and it would relieve some of my worst nightmares. I'd really hate to lose any of my crew when we're potentially this close to finally being able to go home.'

'We will do what we can, captain. We want to see you and your ship return to the Federation very much. It will help you out, and what you've discovered on your own and managed to work out with our help will allow the Federation and their allies to begin discovering much more about your galaxy than they've known before.'

'Well, I hate to eat and run, but if we're going to get our preparations completed before the Borg arrive, we're going to need to get started on them as soon as possible.'

Kahmmhi nodded, and escorted them to the shuttle bay to see them off while Virginia went to work. She had work of her own to do before the Borg arrived in this system. Kahmmhi had already told her what she had planned out, or at least the basics of her plan without all of the details, and there were some things that she still needed to get worked out with the units that would be involved. And there were also some meetings with the other ship commanders, since the entire scout claw could be involved in this battle. Virginia didn't know exactly what Kahmmhi had in mind, but she did know that Kahmmhi had planned out some sort of surprise for the Borg, and that there was a small group of research geeks down in R and D working on customizing one of their weapons to make it perform exactly to Kahmmhi's specifications. Whatever it was, it had impressed the hell out of the tech geeks. That fact by itself was more than enough to worry Virginia.

Janeway and the others had been working to finish everything and make it work for more than a week now. Two days ago, Kahmmhi had contacted her to let her know that the enemy task force was moving toward the system, and they were expected to arrive sometime today. Voyager was already at yellow alert, and there were several hundred Clan troops working on the ship right now. They had been working on the outside of the hull, but once the Borg were detected on their final approach, they had all come into the ship. So now there were several hundred Clan techs working inside the ship and several hundred Raiders scattered throughout the ship in squad size units, though they were probably going to split into fire teams if any Borg actually made it onto the ship.

Kahmmhi and the others were already making their final preparations for the upcoming confrontation. There were a lot of troops already aboard the Clan's HATs and strike assault shuttles, and they were already forming up in the areas that Kahmmhi had assigned them to. If the enemy entered the system and tried to put troops of their own on Voyager, the Clan was going to use the opportunity to do some boarding of their own. Kahmmhi was very eager to gather some firsthand intelligence of her own from the Borg, and wanted to find out how hard it would be for Clan troops to operate on Borg vessels. Virginia already had PT boat talons in position as well, hoping to use them against the main Borg force.

'Is everyone in place?'

'Yes, Kahmmhi. All units are in place and they're all ready to commence operations on your command. Max will be leading any boardings himself.'

Kahmmhi couldn't help smiling. Her older brother had actually been trained by their grandfather during the time that he was first with their Clan, and he had been a Raider ever since he had graduated from the Clan Raider Training Course. As far as her own Clan was concerned, Max was the epitome of the perfect Clan Raider. If anyone could handle the unknown dangers of boarding a Borg ship, Max was her best bet.

'Well, then, let's hope that we get the chance to do some boardings. I know that Max is as eager to meet the Borg face to face and try to bring back some prisoners as I am to find out what we can learn from them.'

Virginia nodded. They had learned enough from the Federation and their allies during their time at DS9 to know that even mentioning their goal of boarding a Borg ship would cause all kinds of panic among the members of Voyager's crew. They reacted to Borg like the Graks reacted to the unexpected presence of Death Wraiths. Total panic, terror, and fear of the very idea of being near them.

'We've got some of the holding cells set up. Just to make sure that they don't do anything at all to escape, we've modified a few cells with a layer of kwyll fused as a molecular matrix to the surfaces. They won't be able to get to ANY of the circuitry or tech that we have.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Good. We may or may not get what we want, but at least we're as prepared as we can be. No matter how things go, we'll definitely do what we can to take advantage of this opportunity.'

'They should enter the system in half an hour at their current course and speed. The group of scout ships that's been watching us didn't join their formation, and is still holding position outside of the system. But it looks like the ships in the recently arrived task force are starting to change their formations. Some of the smaller ships are starting to draw ahead of the others.'

Kahmmhi checked the screen closely, then pulled up the holo image and rotated it in three dimensions. 'Yeah. They may try to pull something sneaky, so keep an eye on them. Inform the units that we may be changing orders rapidly if things change in character once the attack starts.'

'Roger that.' Virginia paused. 'You're certain that you want to go with the plan before we begin actual ops?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Oh, yes. The one thing that the Borg are going to know for sure is that they just fucked with the Clan. They are about to learn just how big a mistake that is.'

Virginia nodded and keyed in some commands. When everything was ready, she was satisfied and sat back to wait.

The hive queen held her scout spheres in formation and in position, away from the recently arrived task force. The hive queen in charge of it had shown nothing but contempt for her, impugning her abilities and her recent performance. She was content to stay back where she was and watch the formation approach the system. Yes, it was a larger force than any other that the Borg Collective had sent to this system, and was much larger than the Collective had ever sent to ANY single system in order to assimilate it. The Collective wasn't interested in her observations or her conclusions. They were obviously flawed, and her input had obviously influenced the outcome of the previous attacks.

'Record everything that we can, and get feeds from all ships so that we have complete records of everything that happens in the system while they are there.'

The drone signaled compliance, and the hive queen devoted her entire attention to watching the outcome. She was convinced that their attack was doomed to failure. She was also convinced that the enemy, whoever they were, had no real intention of coming this far beyond the edge of the system in order to attack her small ships when they weren't doing anything that was overtly aggressive.

She listened as the other hive queen began sending orders to the drones under her control, directing the ships to do what she wanted as they approached the enemy system. The tactics were somewhat different, but they were essentially the same orders that her predecessors had given, and they were obviously doomed to end in failure, just as the other attacks had.

Virginia was watching as five of the nine scout spheres that were out in front of the rest of the Borg task force suddenly surged forward and headed straight toward Voyager's position. A quick plot showed that all of them were heading for the area near Voyager, but none of them were headed directly toward Voyager itself.

'They're spread out to do close approaches at high speed without actually closing on Voyager herself.'

'How close?'

'Maybe thirty thousand kliks.'

'That should be well within transporter range, according to everything that we know about them from the Federation. They're trying to board the ship before the other ships close to attack range. Hoping to create confusion and keep them from mounting an effective resistance.'

Virginia smiled. 'Well, at least they seem to have accepted the fact that resistance isn't totally futile, since they're trying to limit the resistance that they meet this time.'

Kahmmhi chuckled. 'If they try to use their transporters to beam aboard Voyager, they'll meet much more resistance than they're expecting.'

'You mean the Raiders that are on board?'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'Not exactly. Unless their transporters are much better than those that are in use by the Federation, they're not going to get through the armor that we've already put on Voyager, even if it isn't completely finished. Though I haven't bothered to tell Janeway anything about that. She was already worried about the fact that they don't really have any weapons that they can use well right now. They could fire their photon torpedoes, but that wouldn't really help because the Borg can negate their effectiveness. And they can fire some of their phasers, but they have limited angles available. At least, I think they can still fire them. I'm not sure exactly where the techs were on the changeover from phasers to lasers. They may have already taken out the controls and started wiring in the controls for the lasers.'

Virginia nodded. 'Well, the Borg are definitely going to be surprised.'

Kahmmhi nodded, still intently watching the progress of the Borg spheres across the system. 'Go ahead and order the units to intercept them and board. Max can make the call and determine which ship gets boarded. He already knows what to do.'

Virginia acknowledged her and then sent the orders out. Now all they had to do was wait and watch the fun as the Borg saw the first part of their attack get shot to shit.

The HATs closed on the unsuspecting Borg ships. For four of them, that meant that they came under fire from the lasers on the HATs as they followed the Borg through the system during the last part of their attack run on Voyager. For the lucky Borg ship that was closest to Max's position, they were boarded by five strike assault shuttles filled with Clan Raiders.

As the ships came within range, they began trying to transport groups of drones onto Voyager, only to discover that they couldn't get a transporter lock. Every attempt to compensate and beam drones aboard the ship ended in failure. Something was blocking their ability to beam anything into the ship itself, and nothing that they could do was making it possible for them to carry out their mission.

The hive queen was extremely frustrated when she was informed of this unexpected complication, and even more frustrated when she realized that if her scouts didn't keep moving through the system, they would be disabled or destroyed by the enemy ships that they couldn't see. Even attempts to fire back at the source of their lasers didn't seem to be having any effect, and she wasn't even sure that they were hitting the enemy ships. It seemed impossible for any ships to move that quickly, but as soon as the laser beams disappeared, the ships were no longer at the location that they had been firing from. They were either moving from one point to another more quickly than a laser or phaser could travel back to that spot, or they were actually phasing from this plane of reality or dimension into another one. Nothing else could possibly explain the data, since even a cloaked ship wasn't capable of letting lasers or phasers pass through the space that it occupied. And while assimilating the technology that would allow either of those things to occur was something that excited her more than anything, the actual problems involved with assimilating that technology while those who possessed it were fighting made the task seem more daunting than anything that she had ever faced before.

Max smiled as his troops spread out along the corridor that they were in. They had made sure that their speed wasn't too high, so the shuttle had stopped just inside the hull of the Borg ship. He really didn't want to have to try to dig his shuttle out of the wreckage of this flying beer can just to get off of this ship. The one thing that he had to do before leaving was to complete his mission that Kahmmhi had given to him personally. It was a secret mission, and was the primary reason for them boarding a Borg ship in the first place. While it was interesting to think about capturing and studying Borg drones, the Clan really didn't need to do that.

'This is Max. Report in, teams.'

'Irene here. This place sucks rocks big time. We got attacked by drones, then they started running when they realized that our rifles go through whatever energy shielding they're trying to use for defense. Now they're putting up some sort of force fields in the corridors.'

'You know what to do about that.'

'Oh, hell, yeah. Kwyll cuts through their bulkheads like it's hot butter, but when it hits their power sources, those shields go down and stay down.'

'Just don't let them herd you, and keep your six covered. We're going to grab a few, screw with them, and then haul ass. If we were going to board their ships for actual combat, we wouldn't waste our time on ships this small. Besides, we don't want to get too far from our rides. The Borg are probably the type that would kill themselves just to take us with them if they thought that we were going to take the ship, and we definitely don't know how their ship is set up well enough to let us take out that possibility.'

'Roger that. Hunting.'

Max nodded to himself as he continued moving toward his destination. One thing that they had done was to question Seven well enough to know how the Borg handled certain types of things such as boardings, and now he had the perfect spot to plant his surprise before they left.

'Craig here. About the same as Irene. Everything looks the same over and over again.'

'Their ships aren't very specialized. Except for the actual bridge, they have nothing but redundant systems.'

'Yeah, well, we're working our way through the ship, and the drones seem to be avoiding us already as well.'

'Lynn here, Max. We've encountered the same responses, and we didn't even get any of them before they changed their behavior.'

'Well, that indicates that the Hive Queen for this ship is definitely aware of our presence here, and has already learned that her drones are no match for us. We should see if they have any surprises any time now.'

'Joy here, Max. We just had some drones come out of nowhere and try to inject some of us. It didn't work, but they didn't live long enough to let anyone know.'

'They're connected by a mental link to their Hive Queen. So she already knows that they can't get through our armor. They'll probably try something else if they can think of another weapon to try, but other than that, they should keep their distance and try to limit contact with us as long as they don't think we're going to blow their ship to hell and back.'

'Roger that. We're proceeding on mission. Will let you know if anything changes.'

Max looked up at the sound of his wife's rifle going off. A Clan sniper rifle was highly distinctive. 'What's up, Fleur?'

'Just wanted to see if my baby could punch through one of their shields and hit one of those chickenshit suckers before he could get away.'

'Did it work?'

'Like a wet dream. Splattered him all over the bulkheads. Lehr would have been impressed with the pattern.'

Max nodded, just watching and looking around. 'Gina, give me a pulse and take out all of the electronics in the area now.'

Gina set up a small device that looked like a skate, then smiled. 'Fire in the hole.'

There was a sudden sharp sound and then nothing. 'Got it. Everything in the area should be fried. I'm sure as hell not getting any energy readings nearby.'

'What about life signs?'

'Just us.'

'Gary, plant the special, and let's get the hell out of here. How many specimens did the others bag, Fleur?'

Fleur held up one hand with a signal for him to wait, then nodded. 'Total of twelve so far.'

'Call it a day. Bag them, tag them, and haul butt for the shuttles. They should be heading away from Voyager by now.'

'And if they're not?'

'As soon as we're off, the talons will become a bit more serious and stop taking pot shots at these billiard balls. If that isn't enough to convince them, the PT boats will do the job. Just make sure that none of them hits this one hard enough to go more than a hundred meters into the hull. Just in case.'

'Affirmative. Definitely negative outcomes on that one, dear. Confirmation received on our signal.'

Gary smiled as he dropped from the ceiling, still in chameleon mode. 'Done. Signed, sealed, and delivered.'

'Is it active?'

'Fully. Stealth package on that thing will last for months without charging. The rest of the package will go even longer, if necessary.'

Max nodded. 'OK, people. Don't make any noise and don't let them know that we're here or where we were so they don't know how to track us down and check for Easter eggs. Let's haul ass and get out of here while the getting is good.'

'Affirmative.'

Janeway was concerned when Tuvok reported the convergence of five Borg spheres on her position. Then he began reporting attempted transports, but nothing materialized inside her ship and there were no reports of Borg incursions anywhere within her ship.

'I don't get it. Why aren't they getting aboard the ship?'

'Evidently, the new hull armor is interfering with their transporter signals, even if it's not fully completed.'

Janeway nodded, relaxing somewhat. 'Are they attacking yet?'

Before Tuvok could respond, the Borg spheres began firing on Voyager, hitting them several times.

'Hull armor appears to show minor damage, captain. The Borg are firing randomly at the general area that they know we are supposed to be in, but they can't target our ship specifically.'

Chakotay looked very relieved. 'Thank goodness for small favors.'

'The Borg are moving past us and heading away. They do not seem to be turning for another run, captain.'

'You can thank the Clan for that. Those small craft of theirs are slicing up the Borg spheres.'

Tuvok nodded. 'Indeed. They are creating massive amounts of damage, and the Borg shields do not appear to be able to compensate and match frequencies with the lasers.'

Seven nodded, looking over at Janeway. 'I'm not even sure that the Borg are capable of adapting individual shields to individual frequencies that rapidly, captain. They've never had to face an opponent who was capable of adapting their technology so quickly or frequently, or whose technology was obviously so superior to the best that they've been able to assimilate.'

Kahmmhi looked up as she received a signal from Max. 'Hey, little sister. We got you some new dollies to play with, but we lost your little shiny and had to leave it.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'I'm sure you looked high and low for it, but couldn't find it anywhere.'

Max chuckled. 'Why, little sister, I'm not going to spoil things by screwing up your surprise party. If the tech geeks and geekettes did their job properly, then everything should go exactly as planned, because we did every little detail to the T. We are not responsible for any screwups.'

'Thank you, Max. So, how was the wonderful adventure?'

'Kragh me with a spoon sideways if you ever want me to play with those retards. They can't fight for shit, they don't have any warriors, and their weapons and tech only look good in comparison to their tactics.'

'You're kidding.'

'You remember those nights you watched old Earth vids with Grandpa and Uncle Lehr?'

'Duh. Yeah. What about them?'

'I've seen some of that ancient shit. Zombies make these guys look stupid. Hell, these guys make Graks look like rocket scientists.'

'Holy shit. I didn't believe that ANYTHING could be that bad. If they're so freaking stupid and slow, how the hell do they threaten the Federation and the others?'

'Their energy weapons can't cycle like ours can, so they have limited frequencies. The Borg block those few dozen frequencies, and they start owning their asses. Nothing can stop the Borg drones, and they inject any of the crew that they find with those nanobots of theirs and start converting them. Most of their medicine is stone age shit, Kahm.'

'Max!' Fleur did NOT sound happy at the moment. 'Don't call our freaking allies barbs on an open channel.'

'I'm not that stupid, Fleur. Encrypted bursts to Kahm.'

'Oh. Sorry.'

Max smiled as he looked at the screen. 'We got your package delivered. We got your play pals. Anything else you want?'

'No. Return to the ship ASAP. HAT talons and PT boats remain in position, and all other ships return to base. Now that their first attack failed miserably, they're going to want to follow up quickly before we have time to plan and recover.'

'Roger that, base. We'll be home soon. Don't start the party without us.' Max chuckled. 'We've got our party treats on ice so they won't go bad and nobody will miss them.'

The scout spheres were retreating under fire, each of them being targeted by at least fifty small craft. The hive queen was enraged at the audacity and behavior of this new species. They hadn't even been given a species classification number by the Borg yet simply because the Borg weren't certain that they actually were a new species. Or even that it was a species at all, since it was possible that this was all Voyager's doing. Though even she had to admit that, despite her misgivings, she had to agree that at least that part of the other hive queen's assessment of this system seemed to be correct. There was no way that Voyager and its tiny crew could have that many small craft out there, even if they were being remotely controlled. They had found allies somewhere, and their unknown ally was definitely a threat to the entire Borg Collective.

'All ships attack immediately.' She sent the command, then directed the scout spheres that were already under attack to keep going away from the fleet on a vector that would lead the enemy small craft away from Voyager. Even if they had found some help, it would be tied up elsewhere, and she would have a chance to take over Voyager and either control the ship or destroy it. The threat must either be assimilated so that the Collective could use it for their own purposes, or they had to destroy it so that it could never be used against the Collective again.

'Borg ships are crossing the system now, and are in range for full scans, captain.'

'What are they bringing this time, Mr. Tuvok?'

'The five Borg scout spheres are still heading away from Voyager, and are still under attack by the Clan. The larger force that is now approaching our position consists of four scout spheres, eight cubes, seven planetary assimilation spheres, and eight system assimilation cubes.'

Janeway stared at him in shock. The Borg force that he was describing was at least twice as powerful as the last force that had attacked them.

'Incoming message.'

'On screen, now, Mr. Tuvok.'

The image appeared on their screen. A Borg hive queen. Nobody in the system had expected anything else. 'We are Borg. Prepare to be assimilated.' Even the message wasn't surprising.

'Should I answer their hail, captain?'

Janeway shook her head, smiling slightly. 'No, Mr. Tuvok. I think that it's time that the Borg learn exactly who they are really facing inside this system. Kahmmhi has already said that she is going to respond to the Borg challenge this time, and I'm interested in seeing exactly how she plans to deal with them.' Janeway didn't bother to add that she was also looking forward to seeing exactly how the Borg responded to Kahmmhi.

Kahmmhi smiled and nodded at Virginia. 'This is Kahmmhi, leader of this part of Clan Silver Dragon. You are inside a system that is currently being claimed by our Clan. We have given you several warnings to try to discourage you from trespassing in our space without excessive loss of life, but you have ignored them. Leave our space immediately or you will be destroyed.'

'We are Borg. Prepare to be assimilated. Resistance is futile. We are not impressed with your tricks, Captain Janeway of the Voyager. We know that you have but a single ship, and that you cannot possibly hope to stand against our current forces. Prepare to be assimilated and have your knowledge and technology added to the Borg Collective.'

Kahmmhi laughed, then cut the feed on her transmission. 'Are all of the ships in position, Ginny?'

'Oh, yeah. Just waiting for them to come into range so we can begin the fun.'

'Let them close so they think that they have a chance of reaching Voyager. Then we're going to hammer them hard. I'll give them one last warning as they get close, and then we take them out.'

'OK. Any targeting parameters?'

'Destroy most of the small shit that's in this task force. Leave the ones that we boarded alone. And take out about half of the large ships and heavily damage the others. When they run, let them go. I'll make sure that they're going to return to their base before they leave the system.'

Virginia had no doubt of that. She nodded, then relayed the orders to the rest of the fleet.

The hive queen didn't know if this was really a trick or not, but she wasn't taking any chances. She ordered the fleet to change their formation, and headed across the system toward Voyager while they were still spread out enough that they couldn't all be easily targeted from one position. They were going to end this encounter and assimilate Voyager and this new technology no matter what.

'Captain, Kahmmhi says that they will get close to our current position, but we should remain out of range of any Borg weapons. They are going to make sure that the Borg are close to their position before taking any further action.'

Janeway nodded. 'She's trying to get them close enough to overwhelm them with a single sudden attack before they can even begin to respond to her presence or figure out how to respond properly to it.'

Chakotay shook his head. 'From what I've seen and heard, captain, the Borg don't have any possible way to respond properly to an attack by Clan technology and weapons other than to run and hope that the Clan either doesn't or can't follow them.'

Janeway nodded. 'Transwarp. They might try high warp, but they would have to use a transwarp conduit to make sure that they can outrun the Clan ships.'

Tuvok and Seven both looked at her and nodded, agreeing with her conclusion.

'Mr. Paris, can you get us the hell out of here quickly if we need to move for our own safety?'

'Aye, captain. Both warp engines and gravitic drives are available, though we can't go much faster than full impulse safely yet if we use gravitic drives. We haven't finished testing them, and we're still sticking to what we know our internal supports can handle safely until we have our hull armor finished and we've seen what it does for our structural integrity.'

'Very well. Just be prepared to move on my command, Mr. Paris.'

Janeway sat and waited, watching the monitors with the rest of her bridge crew as they sat this fight out.

'They're approaching your mark, Kahm.'

'Drop stealth on all fleet ships now.'

Virginia issued the order, and nine Clan ships suddenly became visible, both to the naked eye and to the sensors on the Borg ships and Voyager.

'Captain, they have decloaked. I'm reading all nine Clan ships. Their sizes and mass are immense.'

'Yes, Mr. Tuvok. She's trying to scare them off by showing them that they're not attacking one small Voyager class ship. And that their technology is good enough to hide even ships that large and massive from being detected at all.'

'But captain, that would just make the Borg even more eager to assimilate any technology that advanced and valuable. With that, they could assimilate anything that they wanted without their target even being aware of their presence before they attacked.'

Janeway smiled. 'I'm sure that Kahmmhi is just as fully aware of that fact as we are, Chakotay. She has baited the Borg at every step, taunting them into sending more forces by showing them that while the prize that they came here for originally isn't going to be easy to assimilate, every time that they lose ships, they also learn that the prize they're after is even larger, more powerful, and more important for them to assimilate and control if they don't want their enemies to be capable of using that same technology to destroy the entire Collective.'

Chakotay smiled slyly. 'She is very devious, and thinks quickly, then.'

Janeway shook her head. 'Oh, she is very devious, and she does think very quickly, but I think that most of the details of this scenario, with the exception of finding us in the Delta quadrant, were worked out long before Kahmmhi ever encountered the Borg.'

'Why would she do something like that?'

Janeway sighed. 'They're bored, cut off from combat against their enemies, and were hunting Borg as a good way to kill time before they had to return to the wormhole to see if they even could make their way back to their own people.'

The hive queen jerked in surprise, stiffening in her seat as she saw the data that was being sent from the ships in the task force. Nine ships had suddenly appeared inside the system, not far from the approaching Borg task force. They were all very large and impossibly massive, especially the one that dwarfed all of the others. Now she understood how so many Borg ships had been so easily destroyed. They had been ambushed by that enemy fleet. What worried her was the level of technology it would require to hide something that large and massive from being detected by the best sensors that the Borg had.

The hive queen in charge of the task force screamed in surprise as nine ships suddenly appeared directly in front of her fleet. None of them were small, and all of them were massively dense for their size, but the largest one dwarfed any other ship in the system. Even the Borg system assimilation cubes, massive as they were, couldn't compare to it for overall mass or size.

The humanoid female appeared again as a signal began coming from the largest ship. 'This is Kahmmhi, leader of this part of Clan Silver Dragon. This is your last warning. Leave this system immediately or you will be destroyed.'

The Borg queen sent a command, and her ships began firing at the alien ships.

Kahmmhi shook her head, smiling as the Borg began firing. 'Play the call to battle, Ginny.'

Virginia hit a button, and the Clan call to battle overwhelmed all of the frequencies in the system as it was broadcast at full power.

Janeway and the others on Voyager were shocked when the Clan signal suddenly overrode all of their systems with the intensity of the signal. The amount of power that generating a signal that strong required was immense, and that just showed how powerful the Clan truly was. They watched a huge, armored black giant drew a large, black sword similar to the ones that all Clan warriors carried. Janeway didn't recognize the symbol on his chest at first, then realized that it was Kahmmhi's grandfather. Whatever he was saying, it wasn't being translated by the universal translator, but she didn't need a translation. His actions made his intent perfectly clear. And the shout at the end of the transmission chilled her to her bones and sent a shiver down her spine.

There was dead silence on the bridge as the transmission ended and the space around them suddenly erupted into the most intense and deadly barrage of weaponry that Janeway had ever seen.

As soon as the Clan call to battle went out, every Clan ship in the formation carried out their orders. All nine ships opened up on the Borg with lasers and railguns. Every railgun was pounding out either AM canister rounds that contained large numbers of AM mines or kinetic slugs that would tear through the Borg shields and then penetrate the entire ship as well. At the same time, the PT boats began making attack runs using half loads of AM mines, each run releasing six AM canisters that headed toward the target at more than six light seconds per hour. While the Clan ships remained visible to the Borg so that they could see how the Clan waged warfare against their enemies, their small craft remained completely invisible to the enemy except for their laser fire. And right now, the Borg were too busy concentrating all of their efforts on trying to do SOME damage to the Clan's fleet ships to bother wasting any of their fire on small craft.

Janeway blinked in surprise as every Clan ship that fired suddenly disappeared and then reappeared in another spot and fired again. Their movement pattern was completely random, and the movement from one point to the other was almost instantaneous.

'Captain, I'm not certain how they are moving their ships, but they are covering distances ranging from several light seconds to several light minutes in almost immeasurably short increments of time.'

Paris looked stunned. 'That must be what the pilots were talking about when they told me about skipping across a system by microjumping. They go into hyperspace through a portal that they create instead of a naturally occurring hyper point, then move for a distance, and come out.'

'I thought that you couldn't tell where you would end up if you did that in hyper.'

'You can't, really. I mean, you can tell about how far and stuff like that, but not the exact direction or trajectory that you were heading on. For short distances, it doesn't matter because you're not that far from your initial frame of reference, so you can figure out where you are very quickly.'

'I'm surprised that they aren't doing anything to hide that capability from the Borg.'

Janeway looked at Chakotay and nodded.

Seven's eyes suddenly widened with surprise. 'She is trying to let them know exactly how outclassed they are. How hopeless their attempts to assimilate Clan technology are.'

'Why would she do that?'

Janeway looked at the others, trying not to look as sick as she suddenly felt. 'I don't know, but I do know that I'm probably going to sleep better at night if I don't ask Kahmmhi to explain the details of her plan to me. Somehow, I get the distinct impression that not knowing is better than knowing exactly how she thinks.'

Tom nodded. 'If she's anything like her grandfather, I'd have to agree with you, captain.'

'What do you mean, Mr. Paris?'

'Her grandfather is the greatest military leader, tactician, and warfare expert that the Clans have ever produced. Even other Clan members who have millennia of combat experience say that they have no idea how he does some of the things that he manages to do in combat. And that if even they can't figure out how he thinks after serving with him for so long or following the training that he has given them, then their enemies have no chance at all, since they can't even figure out how the least experienced troops in the Clans wage warfare well enough to actually stop them.'

'You're kidding.'

Tom shook his head. 'Unfortunately, no. There's even a joke among some of the Clan warriors. If they ever think that they are beginning to understand how Kohl-garh thinks, they want their friends to kill them and put them out of their misery before they lose that last fragile thread that binds them to reality.'

Tuvok didn't even bother to ask for an explanation. Of everyone on the bridge, he was the one who knew very well exactly how terrifying it could be to think about having to deal with the rages, impulses, and memories of violence. Suppressed, imagined, or otherwise. That was the reason why the Vulcans had embraced logic. So that they could limit their aggression and maintain some semblance of a civilization. He could not imagine any living being embracing the violence and aggression that seemed to embody the very essence of Kohl-garh. Yet the man remained sane, functional, and normal. And he had dealt with those emotions, even more strongly expressed than any Vulcan rage, for more than six millennia. He simply realized that the position of the enemies who faced Kohl-garh was hopeless. They were doomed to die, and most of them would never even realize why.

Janeway sighed. 'Kohl-garh is the embodiment of controlled violence, warfare, rage, and aggression.' She saw Tuvok's expression and sighed again. 'Even worse than that of the ancient Vulcans. And yet he controls it completely without losing his emotional responses. He cares for his family and his Clan, and yet shows no mercy at all to his enemies. That is how they wage their war.'

Janeway shook her head, smiling sadly. 'The Borg are emotionless, trying to be machines to achieve perfection, and yet they just met a very emotional race that is stronger, more motivated, and much better at warfare than they are. Unfortunately for the Borg, their technology is millennia more advanced than that of the Borg as well, so the outcome of this encounter was decided by Kahmmhi before she ever met the Borg for the very first time.'

They sat and watched the brief, violent battle play out in front of them, amazed at how easily such an immense and powerful Borg fleet was being destroyed.

The hive queen was taken completely by surprise. The ferocity, speed, and immensity of the attack totally overwhelmed her ability to assimilate the data and make sense of what was happening. Within less than a minute, all four of the scout spheres had been destroyed and the smaller cubes were beginning to take major damage from enemy fire. All of her other ships were also reporting some damage. She jerked as one of the system assimilation cubes was suddenly destroyed completely by a single salvo of railgun rounds from the largest enemy ship.

The hive queen wasn't sure what to do. None of their weapons seemed to have any effect upon the enemy ships because their shields were too strong. They were moving around impossibly, disappearing in one place and appearing instantaneously at another place, then firing and moving again. It was impossible to target them effectively, and it gradually dawned on her that they were showing her how easily they could overcome her fleet by allowing her to see their movements. That with their technology and power, they could conceal their ships so that she couldn't ever detect them at all, and simply do the same thing while the Borg ships couldn't even tell what was attacking them.

There was a message coming in from the enemy leader. Kahmmhi. The hive queen stared in shock and horror as the alien smiled, seeming to stare directly at her. 'You have ignored our warning and attacked the Clan. You are now an enemy of the Clan. All enemies of the Clan die. The Borg Collective has now been added to the list of enemies of the Clan. All ships from all fifty Clans will attack and destroy all Borg on sight once this small scouting force reaches our main fleet and they transmit your actions to all of the other Clans.'

The hive queen couldn't believe what she was hearing, but none of her instruments showed that the alien was lying or deceiving her.

'Don't bother trying to contact any Clan again, because we don't care if you do wish to sue for peace or try to find some way to avoid a war that ends in the complete destruction of your species or ours. You have been found to be a threat to humanity, and every single Clan will destroy you simply for that.'

The hive queen realized that whatever this group was, it certainly didn't represent their entire culture and civilization. They were totally serious about destroying the Borg, and they were irrational enough to clearly believe what she had just been told. With that dawning realization, the hive queen snapped and lost her grip on everything that the Borg considered to be absolutes that served as the foundation for their entire reality. She ordered her fleet to retreat immediately. By the time that they were reaching the edge of the system, her entire fleet consisted of five damaged scout spheres, two heavily damaged cubes, three heavily damaged planetary assimilation spheres, and four heavily damaged system assimilation cubes. She had lost over half of the largest Borg assimilation force that had ever been sent to assimilate a single system. She was almost out of her mind with terror when the hive queen who had faced these Clan forces and survived three times previously contacted her.

'What are you doing?'

'They cannot be assimilated. They are a danger and a threat to the existence of the entire Collective. You heard her message. They intend to hunt down and exterminate the entire Collective. They are insane, but they have technology that is beyond our capabilities to assimilate. We must flee to safety now and warn the rest of the Collective of their capabilities.'

The hive queen couldn't believe what she was hearing. She had been found defective and was going to be liquidated and replaced by the Collective for saying much less than that. 'We are Borg. We must bow to the will of the Collective. Consensus was reached by the Collective. Consensus must be followed.'

'We are returning to the transwarp conduit that we used to get here. Make sure that they don't follow us and learn of its location, and then return to the Collective by some other route. Make sure that they don't follow you back to the Collective. I will give them the new data that we have, and it will be examined. They will learn that you were correct, and that we missed seeing some of the indicators in your arguments that we thought were flawed.'

The hive queen didn't believe her, of course. But there was nothing to gain by arguing with a hive queen who had gone mad. If they couldn't detect the enemy, she couldn't possibly know that they weren't following either the other hive queen or her own forces. That by itself proved that the other hive queen had gone mad. Yet she couldn't challenge her, either. The other hive queen had many more drones, and even as heavily damaged as they were, the ships in her fleet was still much larger and more powerful than the three scout spheres and three cubes that she had at her command.

'I will comply.'

The hive queen was satisfied with the response, too terrified to even notice exactly what the outcast hive queen had just said to her. She led the battered remnants of her fleet toward the distant transwarp conduit at the best speed that she could manage. It would take at least two weeks to get there at her current speed, but it was the best speed that her ships could manage under the circumstances. Perhaps they could move more quickly once some of the repairs were completed. With that thought, priorities for repairs immediately shifted to restoring the structural integrity and repairing any damage to the drives on every ship that remained.

The hive queen watched the force flee, wondering how they would be received by the Collective. There was some chance that the Collective could reach a new consensus. One that could allow her to continue to live and serve in her present function. But she was not about to risk her own life on that fragile hope. She had to return to the Collective, but she held no misconceptions about her own survival. She knew that she was almost certain to be found defective and replaced when she returned to the Collective. Nobody was going to want to believe the truth, no matter how much the sensor data backed her up, simply because it would terrify all of the hive queens, and the entire hive mind would realize that the Borg Collective was doomed to destruction.

B'elana shook her head in disbelief when Tom met her for dinner. 'I can't believe it. Our armor was barely half completed, and it was still able to keep even Borg transporters from beaming through it.'

'The battle was unbelievable. So fast, so intense, and so overwhelming.'

'Yeah. I saw. The captain sent the signal from the main screen throughout the entire ship so that we'd all know what was happening. Now I understand how their enemy is so confused whenever they fight against the Clan. I can't imagine anything being able to execute maneuvers like that in combat, let alone do them so successfully. And thinking about fighting an invisible ship that I can't possibly detect while it is doing that? That would give me nightmares.'

'But, B'elana, we can do that right now. Not quite as well as the Clan can because we don't really have hyper drives to create an entry to hyperspace. But our gravitic drives allow us to do maneuvers like that without any problems so long as we don't exceed our structural integrity safety margins. It's not quite instantaneous, but it is very rapid. And with our ships having stealth, they would be completely undetectable.'

B'elana stared at him for several seconds, then laughed softly. 'Damn, and they say that Klingons are a bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians who live for warfare.'

Tom nodded. 'Yeah, they do pale in comparison to the Clan.'

B'elana laughed lightly as she leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips. 'I was referring to you, Tom. You should see the gleam and delight in your eyes as you talk about being able to do something like that with our new shuttles.'

Tom grinned. 'Does that mean that I should throw you down and mate with you in the Klingon tradition?'

B'elana glared at him. 'Try that, and I'll pound the stuffings out of you. Not until we can get back to the Alpha quadrant and have a formal wedding so that my family can come.'

Tom shrugged, grinning from ear to ear. 'Hey, you can't blame a guy for trying. Besides, now that it's probably not going to take another sixty or seventy years to get there, I can wait if you can.'

'Good. I made some special dishes to celebrate surviving this last Borg attack.'

Paris looked at her, then eyed the covered dishes on the table hesitantly. 'Dare I ask what they are?'

B'elana smiled as she lifted the lids on the dishes. Tom stared, then looked at her. 'Is that what I think it is?'

'Oh, yeah. Beest stew, chyrrka steaks, and ...' B'elana lifted the last lid, beaming with delight. 'Chocolate covered strawberries for dessert.'

They began eating with gusto, and were both stuffed and feeling very relaxed by the time they finished their dessert.

'How did you get this stuff to replicate? It tastes exactly like it did on the Clan ship.'

'I'm the chief engineer, silly. The very first replicator on the ship that was replaced with a Clan synthesizer, after the ones in the main mess hall, was the one in my quarters. They'll do the ones in the rest of the officers' quarters tomorrow, and all of those for the rest of the crew quarters will be finished by the end of the week.'

'Hmm. Good. Now, do you know what I want to do more than just about anything in the universe?'

B'elana nodded and grinned playfully. 'Uh, huh. Sleep. We have to be up in six hours.'

'What? What for?'

'Kahmmhi invited the captain and her staff to her ship first thing in the morning. And with the Clan day being longer than ours, our times don't exactly match up, so we're off by a few hours right now.'

'So, should I sleep here and save time, or go to my quarters?'

'You can sleep here, as long as you promise to sleep and let me get some rest. I just put in several long days in a row down in engineering making sure that everything that was being done was done right. The Clan is running tests on their repairs constantly, and if something fails even one test at all, they rip it out and replace it with new parts that don't fail any of the tests.'

Tom nodded. 'Scout's honor. I'll be a perfect gentleman.'

'Well, not TOO perfect, I hope. One nice thing about spending time sleeping on a Clan ship is that I have learned that I really do like to cuddle with someone when I sleep.'

Tom nodded, and the two of them climbed into her bed, cuddled, and quickly fell asleep.

Tom looked perplexed as he looked at the party in the shuttle bay. 'I thought that we were taking the whole command crew over.'

Janeway shook her head. 'You're the pilot. I need to talk to Kahmmhi about something, and she asked that I bring Seven and B'elana with me. She said that she had some questions that required their technical expertise, and that she wasn't willing to discuss them over the comm. She said something about having picked up a few surprise packages.'

Paris shrugged, knowing that it was useless trying to figure out anything that had to do with the Clan until they told you what they wanted to know. They kind of seemed to speak English, or some form of it, though they called it Basic, but many of the words had very different meanings than anything that he'd ever heard, and some of what they said seemed to be in some type of code that nobody outside of the Clan could possibly decipher. He knew all about how slang and technical lexicons created new meanings for words, or entire dictionaries that were specific to a particular field of study, but the Clan's linguistics pushed that to new levels.

When they got to the landing bay on the Rolling Thunder, Tom saw that there were only a few people waiting there to meet them. Kahmmhi, her Shadows, and Virginia, the commander of the ship. There was one other person there. A really huge guy in Clan armor.

'Hello. This is my older brother, Max. He's he leader of our Raider forces.'

Janeway nodded, greeted him, and introduced him to Tom, B'elana, and Seven.

'Seven.' Max smiled. 'Good. We've been wanting to discuss some things regarding the Borg with you, since you might be able to provide us with some answers to questions that the others don't seem to be able to give us.'

'Others?' Seven looked as confused as the rest of them.

'We captured some Borg when we boarded one of the first scout spheres that entered the system to attack and try to board Voyager yesterday.'

Janeway gasped. 'You CAPTURED Borg drones? Quick, you MUST kill them right away. They will remain in contact with their hive queen and feed her information through their cortical implant.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Right now they are in stasis, and they can't do anything. And the room that they are to be kept in is lined with kwyll that has been worked into a molecular lattice. And we doubt that any Borg could possibly send a signal through the hull armor on this ship. Especially when they're still more than ten kilometers from the surface of the ship.'

Seven nodded. 'That should be sufficient to allow them to be studied safely, though I doubt that they will be able to keep them alive for very long if they don't have any regeneration chambers.' She looked at Kahmmhi with a very serious expression. 'Borg drones require periodic regeneration in special chambers that allow their body and mind to recover, similar to what you do when you sleep. But it also helps maintain all of their implants and helps the nanobots in their body to maintain normal functions.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'We've had them in stasis tubes since they were captured. And all we really want them for is to question them and study them so that we understand how they think, how their systems work, and how we can kill them more effectively and efficiently when we meet them in combat again.'

Seven nodded. 'They don't really think for themselves. Drones are controlled by the hive queen, and only communicate between themselves to determine the best way to handle certain problems that they encounter. They don't have individual personalities. They simply follow orders and perform simple tasks that they have been trained to do.'

Kahmmhi sighed. Max laughed softly. 'I told you that trying to get any intel out of them was a waste of time, Kahm. Those bloody things act like a bunch of tards.'

Janeway thought that she knew what that comment meant, but she wasn't about to correct him or tell him that it wasn't polite of him to talk about the Borg drones that way. The guy was big, huge, and a Clan Raider. Those were some of the most aggressive and dangerous members of the Clan's offensive forces.

They had been walking and going through the ship as they walked, and they came to a room where there were a dozen large cylinders standing in an open space. Two Clan warriors were waiting in the room when they arrived.

'OK, open one of them and let's see what we've got.'

Before Janeway or any of the others could say anything, they opened one of the cylinders and revealed a Borg drone. The pulled it out of the cylinder, left it in a chair, and went back to put the cylinder up.

'So, it has prosthetics and implants, and it also has nanobots?'

'Yes.'

'And the Borg really do assimilate all different types of species?'

'Yes.'

The drone opened its eyes. 'We are Borg. Prepare to be assimilated.'

Max laughed. 'Uh, drone, assimilate this. Your hive queen and your entire fleet just got their asses kicked, most of them are dead, and the survivors that we let escape are heading back to their base, fleeing in terror as they try to warn the rest of your Collective that we're coming after them to kill them all.'

'We are Borg. Resistance is futile.'

Janeway shook her head. 'They are very singleminded. Basic programming. Assimilate. If you let them live, they'd try to assimilate your crew, take over your ship, and take your ship and your technology back to the Borg Collective. You really do have to kill them as soon as possible. It's just not safe to have them on board your ship.'

The Borg suddenly lunged toward Janeway, thrusting its arm forward. She saw the tube streaking out of its arm and screamed, but suddenly she was knocked back by an impact on her shoulder. She looked up from the ground to see Kahmmhi standing there with her hand out, blocking the Borg with her bare hand. There were two tubes from the Borg sticking into her skin, and Janeway suddenly felt very sick as she realized that the woman who had saved her and her crew had just been infected with Borg nanobots.

'Oh, God. She's been infected. You have to kill her before she's converted. If they open the other tubes, they'll have enough drones to start trying to infect your entire crew and take over your ship.'

Kahmmhi stared at her, then shook her head and smiled. The Borg withdrew the tubes, then turned toward the nearest other person. Max backhanded it, sending it across the room and into the wall so hard that it slumped to the deck.

Krohn went over to where the Borg was lying and shook his head. 'Brynhe, call a medic down here right now. She can check Kahmmhi out when she finishes seeing if this one is going to live.'

Janeway and the others stood in shock, watching as the Clan members seemed to be almost unconcerned with the nanobots that had to be transforming Kahmmhi's body as they spoke. A few minutes later, the door opened and a female medic came into the room.

'Patient?'

'This drone. What's wrong with it?'

The medic began examining the drone very carefully with instruments that were totally unfamiliar to Janeway and the others. 'Trauma from hitting the wall. Not too many cracked ribs from the blow, so I'm assuming it was a pulled punch. Concussion, but that's not what's killing it.'

'Killing it?' Janeway and the others looked as confused as she sounded.

The medic looked up at Kahmmhi. 'He's not convertible. The bots are already attacking all of the alien implants. Once the cortical implant in the brain goes and there's no cortical activity, you've got a brain dead drone. Give it a week at the very most and it will be sludge.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'Couldn't be helped.'

Janeway stared at her. 'What about you? You've been infected with Borg nanobots when the Borg attacked you.'

The medic came over and scanned Kahmmhi without a word. 'Definitely inferior bots. Beta bots would own their asses every day of the week. Numbers are declining so rapidly that I can't even get an accurate count.'

'What are you talking about?'

The medic looked at Janeway. 'Her nanobots are eliminating the Borg nanobots. They're defective, and they don't serve the purpose of enhancing normal genetic functions, so they're just raw materials as far as the Alpha bots are concerned.'

'HER nanobots? I don't understand. What are you guys talking about?'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'All Alphas have nanobots in their bodies. In fact, all Clan members have nanobots in their bodies. Alphas, Betas, or Deltas. What you are is determined by what type of nanobots you have in your body. Some Clan members can't tolerate anything other than Beta bots because of their base genetics, some can tolerate Delta bots, and some can have Alpha bots. Betas are the weakest, but we convert anyone that we can to the best that they can be now that we know exactly what the genetic parameters are and what benefits the nanobots can provide, and now that our numbers are up. Those with the strongest genes are given Alpha bots so long as they can meet the minimum cutoffs and be converted to an Alpha safely. Once a woman is fully converted, all of her children gain the same type of nanobots. We only have to worry about those who are Alphas, since their nanobots are infectious. A woman is infected with them if they have sex with a male who is an Alpha, but they don't generally transmit from female to male unless you actually get blood into a cut or inject them. Kahmmhi's mother was an Alpha, as are all of Troy's wives and children. Only Alpha bots are infectious. They armor our bones, improve our immune systems, boost our metabolism, and stop all cellular aging at the molecular level.'

Seven nodded. 'You already have achieved the perfection that the Borg strive to achieve, but your path was in the opposite direction. Instead of enhancing the humanoid form by making it more like a machine, you used your nanobots to enhance the human form and make it better, faster, stronger, last longer, and self repairing.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'We didn't choose that path, and we didn't do it by choice. Well, my grandfather has been offering the choice of becoming Alphas rather than Betas or Deltas to all of the members of the other Clans who want to become Alphas, so long as it's safe to convert them. But that's only to allow them the chance to become stronger, faster, and live longer. Betas and Deltas aren't as strong as we are, so they suffer injuries in combat much more often than we do, don't heal from them as well as we do, and they eventually age and die.'

Janeway stared at her. 'You're Borg?'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'No. We are individuals, and our nanobots only enhance our normal functions and work with our own genetics to enhance them as much as possible.'

Seven nodded. 'They are the very antithesis of the Borg, captain. In fact, from what the medic just said, I must assume that their nanobots would kill the Borg if they were ever put into them.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Scan the others and determine if ANY of them are convertible. And while you're at it, why don't you scan Seven and see if she is?'

The medic did as Kahmmhi had requested, and returned in a few minutes after scanning the other eleven stasis tubes. 'It will just take a few minutes for the comp to do all of the calculations.'

When her comp chimed, the medic looked at the results. 'None of the Borg are convertible at all. I'd say that Seven could be safely converted if all that we had to worry about was her genetic parameters, but she has an implant inside her brain that scans as something that the bots consider counterproductive for survival. Once they remove that, they don't have anything that can rebuild the cerebral cortex, not even if we put her into stasis. And she won't live very long without a cerebral cortex, except as a vegetable on life support. She'd be brain dead.'

Seven shook her head. 'Definitely not a positive outcome.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Go ahead and take them down to the infirmary and study them. Inject them all and make sure they record how the nanobots go after various types of implants. Looks like we can just use bot bullets on them from now on.'

The medic nodded, and Kahmmhi led them from the room. Janeway paused suddenly as they were walking, then shook her head. 'I'm very sorry, Kahmmhi. In all of the confusion, I forgot to thank you for saving my life. If you hadn't blocked that drone, I'd be a Borg drone or dying right now. You lack the technology to even try to save me from becoming a Borg or reverse the process.'

'Yes, we do, but we would have put you into a stasis tube and kept you there until we reached the Federation and let them try to save you. Or we could have seen if you could be safely converted and then injected you with nanobots. Even Beta bots would be enough to save you and allow you to remain human. You'd be immune to being infected with Borg bots for the rest of your life. Of course, if you were a Beta, converted at your current age, you'd only live for about another fifteen hundred to two thousand years, barring accidents.'

Janeway stared at her. 'You're kidding.'

'No. Betas have the shortest lifespan. About two thousand years, though occasionally one lives to maybe three thousand years at most. Of course, that IS Clan years, so it's a bit longer by your calendar. Deltas live three thousand easily, sometimes four.'

'And Alphas?'

Kahmmhi looked at B'elana. 'Other than some of those who were initially transformed with different types of Alpha bots, Alphas don't age or die at all. Those with Alpha two bots don't age, but they do have more trouble healing from serious injuries, and they scar more easily. Alpha threes are easier to kill than Alpha twos, and don't recover as well as they do from serious injuries. Alpha fours die at about four to five thousand years old, and actually do age very slowly. They are still stronger than Deltas, and have better regeneration and healing as well.'

'So you're an Alpha two?'

'No. All of us are Alpha ones. We don't age at all, don't scar almost at all, heal rapidly and well from almost any injury that doesn't kill us.'

'And your grandfather?'

'Kohl-garh is an Alpha Prime. They call him that because he is bigger, stronger, faster, and tougher than any other Alpha. He survives wounds that would kill any other Alpha, including almost every Alpha One. He never scars, no matter how serious the injury. He doesn't age at all, and the bots seem to really work on improving his body in every way that they can.'

Seven nodded. 'How come he is so different from anyone else?'

'According to my grandmother, who is the chief doctor for their Clan, it's because he has more genes for all of the Tryx traits that the bots were programmed to enhance. Instead of having just single copies of each of those genes on each allele, he has at least two copies of every single one of them on each allele. And there are different promoters for some of the genes. He has the strongest type of every single promoter, and some of them are also present in multiple copies. There are even a few promoters that he has that are mutated from the strongest form, and work even better than the original promoter did. Since the bots were programmed to work on enhancing your base genetics, he had much more for them to work with and enhance than anyone else who was transformed.'

Janeway shook her head. 'Hearing you talk like that, I'm surprised that you didn't have to deal with people in the Alpha quadrant worrying about another eugenics war.'

Kahmmhi cocked her head. 'None of them ever mentioned anything about that to us, but they were kind of occupied with other, more pressing matters at the time, and they did know that we weren't intending to stay in the Alpha quadrant. And that we had no intentions of either ruling or eliminating humanity.'

Janeway nodded.

Krohn chuckled softly. 'Well, there WAS Admiral Stevens. And that spook, what's his name?'

Lyhssyha grinned. 'Commodore Richards, of Federation Security.'

'Yeah, that's the one. Kraghlar chyrrhp.'

B'elana and the others tried not to giggle or smile, since they had heard that comment often enough to recognize it, especially when it was delivered in that tone of voice. Janeway actually rolled her eyes. That was a very disrespectful thing to say to a commodore, even if he was part of Federation Security.

'Don't tell anyone in the Federation that I said this about a superior officer, but Admiral Stevens is a hothead and an overbearing asshole. And Federation Security is about as corrupt and paranoid as anyone in the entire Federation can get.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'From what I have seen of the individuals, I'd have to agree with your assessment, since all four of my Shadows totally agree with you as well. Though I'm not sure if either of them would still be your superior at this time, captain. When we left DS9, both of them were being returned to the Federation Council for disciplinary hearings concerning their activities, actions, and behavior during their time at DS9.'

'You're kidding me. Who would actually do something like that?'

'Admiral Picard personally had Admiral Stevens put under arrest for transport after his activities, and his charges were backed up by Admiral Yamato. As for Commodore Richards, it seems that the entire Federation Council specifically chose Ambassador Masters for their first contact negotiations with the Clan, and she was in charge of their political negotiations with us. She seemed to have some problems with his behavior, and he seriously compounded that by making some not so veiled threats against me while we were at a diplomatic function to celebrate the agreements that had been reached between us and the Federation and their allies. She had him arrested on the spot and sent back to stand trial before a tribunal as well.'

Paris looked shocked. 'Holy shit. I can't believe it. That is extremely serious. He could actually be sentenced to jail time for a violation such as that.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'The admiral we had no real problems with, since he was just being overzealous in his duties as far as we were concerned. The commodore...'

Krohn made a hacking sound, then several other sounds that hurt the ears of every Federation person present.

'Krohn! Don't DO that. I HATE Grak.'

'Sorry, Tahr Kahhni. But you can't disagree with the comment.'

'OK, yeah, he should have been forced to take the Grak option.'

Tom snickered, but B'elana looked confused. Both Janeway and Seven appeared to be somewhere between those two extremes. B'elana nudged Tom. 'Come on. Spill it. Why are you laughing? What does that mean?'

'The "Grak option" is what they call it when they allow their enemy to go out an airlock naked instead of being killed by them. From what I've learned, I think that it's part of Clan humor to compare those that they think are a waste of either genetics or resources to Graks, and suggest that the best thing to do with them would be to eliminate them from the gene pool.'

Virginia nodded. 'That's a fairly accurate assessment. Those who pose a danger to the Clan by their actions are punished. Usually by demotion or expulsion from whatever position they are in. But there have been instances of individuals who actually intentionally broke our laws and tried to either gain power or abuse their power for their own gain.'

'What happened to them?' Janeway was very interested in this answer, because it would tell her a lot about the mindset of the entire culture.

'Those who hadn't been able to do much damage or who hadn't killed anyone through their actions were generally demoted. Those whose actions were intentional were banished from the Clan and given minimal resources to survive. Those who intentionally killed other Clan members were guilty of murder. Our law has one penalty for murder.'

'And what is that?'

Max chuckled. 'Death by decapitation. As the Borg learned during our boarding, when we cut the head off of every single drone that we killed. Every adult Clan member who has gone through Clan Basic can quite easily and efficiently decapitate an enemy without even thinking about it. Those who attack the Clan and try to kill us are our enemy. I doubt that even the Borg can survive decapitation.'

Seven shook her head. 'Not even a hive queen could survive that type of injury. Your swords could quite easily cut through their armored duranium skeleton and destroy all of the circuitry and neural pathways that control the body that they are put into. And it would destroy their ability to receive the necessary life support functions from whatever other vessel they are put into.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Well, that won't matter very much when the Borg get our little going away present.'

Janeway stared at her. 'What do you mean?'

'Ask me again later, after we've had some time to try to verify that our plan worked, captain, and I'll be glad to tell you all of the details.' Kahmmhi smiled, then tilted her head. 'Well, at least as much of the details as we're willing to reveal to your culture. There are still some aspects of our technology that you definitely are not ready to deal with, and this is definitely one of them.'

Janeway and the others looked at each other and shrugged. Getting information out of Kahmmhi was like trying to pull teeth when she wasn't in a talkative mood. And she rarely revealed anything at all to them before it was time when she was trying to keep a secret or "surprise" them with something.

'We should have most of the modifications to your ship completed within another month at most. I don't expect to see any more Borg activity in this system, and certainly not within the next five weeks. It will probably take longer than that for the last fleet that they sent to return with their report and for them to gather enough forces to send an even larger and more powerful fleet to face us here.'

Janeway nodded. That made sense. The battle had been a tremendous defeat for the Borg.

Seven spoke up. 'I agree with your conclusion, Tahr Kahhni. Although I was not privy to certain types of data or information when I was a drone, the fact remains that I am unaware of ANY time in the history of the entire Borg Collective when they have suffered such dramatic losses in such a short period of time. And even when they have suffered serious losses in the past, they have managed to at least assimilate something in order to offset those losses. Even in their ongoing war in subspace, they destroy ships, aliens, and fortresses in exchange for their losses. And their losses are nowhere near this magnitude.'

'What do you mean, Seven? We only faced a few small fleets of ships.'

Janeway looked at Kahmmhi, stunned by her comment. 'A few SMALL fleets of ships?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Of course. The first two attacks were obviously nothing more than scouting missions or raids that they made upon a target of opportunity, thinking that they could quickly and easily acquire that which they wanted without much risk of discovery or failure.'

'But they sent two planetary assimilation spheres in the second attack.' Only after seeing the size of the Clan's ships and their fleet was Janeway finally able to accept that they might actually consider a Borg scout sphere and a Borg cube small vessels that were used for scouting purposes. They were smaller than the Clan ships that were in the scout claw that was under Kahmmhi's command.

'Compared to the size of a Grak fleet, even the largest and most powerful Borg fleet that we've seen so far is small and weak. A standard Grak fleet consists of ten battleships, about seventy battlecruisers, and several hundred heavy cruisers and light cruisers.'

Janeway shook her head. 'We have no idea how large any of those ships are.'

'Heavy cruisers are two kliks long and one klik in diameter. Battlecruisers are six kliks long and two kliks in diameter. Battleships are thirty kliks long and ten kliks in diameter.' Virginia answered automatically.

Seven nodded. 'Your ships are not only much larger than anything that the Borg have built, but they are much more massive as well. The amount of hull armor alone, all of it much denser than duranium, gives your ships more mass than any Borg vessel that is many times their size. For your ships that are actually larger than the largest Borg ships, the only thing that would require that much materials is one of the hubs that they have to connect transwarp conduits in subspace.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'These hubs are very massive?'

Seven nodded. Janeway quickly agreed. 'Oh, yes. They are massive, sprawling expanses of construction that house literally billions of Borg drones. The amount of construction required to build one is extensive, and they must be close to the mass of an entire moon or small planet. There are hundreds or thousands of Borg ships coming and going from them all of the time, reporting the results of their explorations or missions, depositing whatever they have assimilated so that it can be studied and disseminated throughout the entire Borg Collective, and bringing in newly assimilated drones so that they can be put to use elsewhere throughout the Collective.'

Kahmmhi smiled and looked intently at Virginia and Max. Max just chuckled. 'I think that I'll go tell Fleur that she can quit worrying that we won't get the full bang for our buck. It sounds like we should get a really nice return on the time, energy, and resources that we invested into our mission.'

As he walked off, Janeway couldn't help wondering what he had been talking about. Nice return? Mission? She was clueless. Nothing that Max had just said made any sense to any of them because they had no frame of reference to compare what he had said to anything that they knew about.

Kahmmhi decided to get the conversation back on track. 'Virginia, do you have the numbers for what we managed to do to the Borg?'

'Between all of the attacks, we destroyed five of the small scout spheres, fourteen of the small cubes, ten of the larger spheres, and seven of the large cubes. After the last attack, there were five scout spheres left, all with some damage to them, two cubes with heavy damage, three larger spheres with heavy damage, and four of the larger cubes with heavy damage that fled the system. The three scout spheres and three cubes that were left from previous attacks didn't enter the system, and remained behind the fleeing force to make sure that we didn't follow them as they ran for their escape.'

Seven nodded. 'Presumably, after having seen you demonstrate the vast superiority of your ships and weapons, they fled to warn the Collective of the danger that you posed to the entire Borg Collective. They will have to take some time to determine a way in which to try to adapt and assimilate your technology safely before they will risk facing you in combat again.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'We should be long gone from this system before any of their forces can ever reach this system again. And if we aren't, they definitely won't like any going away presents that I give them if they bring enough forces to this system to make it worth my while to show them what we can really do.' Kahmmhi shook her head. 'But I really don't want to do that, because once I show them what we can really do to them, I doubt that we'll be able to get them to willingly come anywhere near any system that they even think we're in.'

Virginia chuckled. 'If they reach that hub and your going away present works as well as it could, you may have already reached that point, Kahm.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'You know that the odds of that happening are very small, Ginny. I mean, yeah, it's a really nice thought, but let's stick to reality here. It's not really all that likely.'

Kahmmhi smiled and looked at Seven. 'You say that their losses here were unusually high? Could you explain that to me, please?'

Seven nodded. 'Certainly. Borg ships are built on a fairly nonspecific design so that there are multiple levels of redundancy and multiple systems for everything. Except for a few very specific systems, everything in the ship is made so that it can be easily and quickly replaced. Nanobots in the ship itself perform much of the repair functions when a ship is damaged, so they are almost totally self repairing. The hive queen who runs the ship doesn't even have to direct the normal repairs because they are done automatically. Only when the damage is unusually extensive or there have been damages that affect the ability of the ship to maintain life support are the drones themselves ever really required to assist in making repairs or sealing off part of the ship to maintain life support in certain areas of the ship.'

Kahmmhi and Virginia nodded, listening carefully to what Seven was saying.

'Borg ships are damaged in combat all of the time, but they generally don't need to come back to a hub or to a Borg system for repairs because the ships repair themselves. The only exceptions are when there has been extensive damage that can't be fully repaired, when certain critical systems that can't be repaired have been damaged, or when so much of the crew has been killed during a battle that they require more drones to operate the ship properly. During extensive combat, ships will come back to the hubs for repairs and replacement drones, but only if they are on the losing end of the engagement. Generally, they assimilate their target and replace any losses with materials that they take from the target, assimilate any drones that they require to perform the normal crew functions, and assimilate their unique knowledge and technology into the Collective.'

'And what happens when they take losses like they did here?'

Seven gave Kahmmhi a blank stare. 'I have no idea. I've never heard of ANY species ever causing this much damage to the Borg Collective in such a short amount of time. Damaging ships is one thing, but you actually destroyed more than half of the ships that came into this system, killing the entire crews outright and literally vaporizing the ships so that there is nothing of them left to salvage. I have never heard of something like that happening, other than a few isolated incidents involving one or, at most, two Borg ships. Unique situations in which a ship that is about to be assimilated manages to detonate their warp cores and create a large antimatter explosion. Something of that sort.'

Janeway looked at Seven. 'But the Clan does that on a huge scale with their weapons. They use more antimatter in a matter of minutes during an attack than most systems even have.'

Seven nodded. 'That is true, captain. I'm certain that the Borg are not dealing with this idea very well, since they have never met any species that seems to have access to such abundant amounts of antimatter. Obviously, simply giving the Federation and their allies access to the ability to open hyper points and collect antimatter from them would give them more than enough antimatter to begin developing weapons that would destroy Borg ships quite easily. And the Borg became aware of that during their first attack in this system.'

Janeway nodded. 'You had this whole thing planned out from the start, didn't you?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Oh, yes. I have been planning this encounter since before we ever left DS9 and entered the Delta quadrant. I wasn't sure how it would go, and had several contingency plans to handle different types of responses from the Borg.' She smiled. 'But I have to admit that I never expected them to actually reach this point or attack this many times. I had thought that only Graks or Garns could be that singleminded or stupid.'

'Now that they've seen how many different weapons systems that you have that are so much better than anything that they possess, and how vastly technologically superior to them your culture is, they will stop at nothing in their attempts to assimilate you.'

'Unfortunately, I think that Max is correct in his assessment, and my last parting shot will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Once they realize what happened, and how easily we can destroy them, I fear that the Borg will avoid us like the plague.'

The Borg hive queen finally reached the transwarp conduit with the battered remnants of her fleet. They were still trying to repair some of the damage that had been done to the ships, and entire sections of the outer rim were sealed off, still open to space. There simply weren't enough materials left of the ship to repair some of the massively damaged areas that had been vaporized by antimatter explosions. When they finally entered the transwarp conduit, she began to relax and try to regain control of herself. Finally, they were safe from whatever species had attacked them. Fortunately, this Clan didn't use similar technology, so they probably couldn't follow the Borg into transwarp.

The hive queen went over the data that she had been able to compile during her attempts to assimilate this new enemy, and every time that she reviewed it, she was even more aware of how vulnerable the Borg were to this new species and their vastly superior technology. Their troops actually rammed the Borg spheres with their small craft to board the ships, and then nothing had been able to stop them. Drones had tried to inject them with nanobots, only to find that they wore armor that prevented that from happening. Drones had attacked them, only to discover that the aliens were stronger than an enhanced Borg drone. She attributed that feat to the aliens somehow using powered armor, though they couldn't detect any energy signatures at all from any of the enemy suits or their weapons.

Their weapons bothered her a lot. For their ground troops, they actually used antiquated guns and swords. And some type of very powerful explosives. Yet all of them operated far more effectively, far more efficiently, and with far more power than any weapons of the sort should be capable of generating. And, as for their small craft, their lasers were impossibly powerful and had impossibly long range capabilities. They were LASERS, yet they were almost invisible. They operated at almost the ultraviolet range, and even when they altered their frequencies in unbelievable ranges so that the Borg shields couldn't possibly neutralize them by adapting to block the specific frequency that they had just encountered, they kept firing and causing massive destruction to Borg ships.

As for their other weapons, the hive queen didn't even know what to think about them or how to calculate either what they were or how they worked. Ships had been vaporized completely without any detectable weapons signature, and they hadn't been able to detect anything that would let them figure out how whatever weapon it was had even been delivered in the first place. One second the ships had been there, and the next second they simply had ceased to exist at all. Nothing at all could be detected to show that the ships had ever even existed.

The aliens had some kind of railgun that was impossibly powerful. Even the huge ships that she had seen during their last attack couldn't possibly have generated enough energy to get ANY projectile up to the speeds that had been recorded by their sensors. She had done the math, and it was simply impossible to achieve that type of acceleration with any railgun that could possibly fit inside one of those ships.

What really worried her was the enemy's seeming ability to move instantaneously from one point to another, and their confirmed ability to completely hide their ships from every detection method that the Borg possessed. If they couldn't see the enemy, how could they possibly fight them effectively or even find them to assimilate them? She had no answers to her questions, but she did know that the Collective would know what to do. They had to reach some sort of consensus if the Collective was to survive this threat. The problem was that this type of threat was unprecedented, and had never been encountered before. She had gone through all of the records and classification of various species and civilizations that the Borg had ever encountered, and had then gone through all of the records of the species that had been assimilated. None of them had ever reported anything like the technology that this new species used, and none of them had ever reported anything about any species or civilization that called itself "Clan". All of the information that they had on this new species was the very small amount of data that they had been able to acquire before their ships that had attempted to assimilate them had either been totally destroyed or severely damaged and driven from the system.

She sent her analysis and research data to the Collective, hoping that they would have time to study it and figure out something that she had overlooked or that hadn't been included in her database. In the meantime, she did the one thing that the Borg had not done in at least several thousand years. She marked each of the systems that the Borg had detected the unusual anomalies that appeared to be wormholes in as dangerous, restricted systems that were to be avoided if possible. Then she marked the system that she had just been inside as banned, with no Borg ships to enter that system for any reason unless the entire Collective or the Prime Hive Queen ordered them to do so. Whatever species claimed that system was dangerous, and had threatened to hunt down and eliminate the Borg.

The hive queen realized that her counterpart was probably inside the transwarp conduit by now, and would be on her way to the hub that serviced this sector of the Delta quadrant at a very high speed. Her own six ships were approaching the first system that they had entered when they had begun trying to research the new and unusual phenomenon that had led them to this area in the first place. She was no longer interested in trying to assimilate whatever unknown alien technology was responsible for creating those phenomenon, since it was obviously extremely dangerous and far more advanced than anything that the Borg possessed. She knew that these thoughts were not acceptable, and that they went against the primary goals of the entire Borg Collective, but there were valid reasons for the conclusions upon which her beliefs were based. First of all, the technology seemed to work in ways that weren't logical or rational. That made it very dangerous and risky for the Borg, since they required technology that they could understand. Things that worked rationally, and whose operation made sense.

Nothing about this recent mission made any sense at all. First, they were following the trail of anomalous events to the system where they finally found those who were responsible for creating the anomalies, so they tried to assimilate them. And then suddenly everything had gone wrong for no reason that she could discern. Voyager had been there, but hadn't responded to their hails or challenges during the first two confrontations. Then she had finally responded and even challenged the Borg when it was obvious that her ship could not possibly defeat the Borg forces that were already inside the system. It was also clearly impossible for her ship to have caused the destruction of the two previous Borg fleets, and Voyager also clearly could not have possibly developed the technology to create all of the things that they had encountered inside that system. Certainly not on their own.

Then the Clan had finally responded during the fourth encounter inside that system. The hive queen who had become insane had still been correct about one thing, though. The Clan leader had been totally serious in her threat to destroy the Borg on sight. The Borg hadn't managed to assimilate any of the superior technology that had led them to this system, but they had learned some things that would help them in their efforts to survive now that they had made an enemy that was more dangerous than every other enemy that they had ever faced.

She knew that they used some form of travel that was impossible for the Borg to understand or comprehend, since it was totally outside of their experience and didn't seem to have anything at all in common with any of the known methods of propulsion. She knew that the anomalies that they had tracked that appeared to be some form of wormhole seemed to be connected to this dangerous new enemy, and could represent the way in which they moved from one system to another. If so, at least this would allow the Borg to have some sort of warning of their approach to any system that the Borg were in.

Unfortunately, there was nothing to help them when it came to facing the Clan in combat. Their weapons were capable of causing massive amounts of destruction in a small amount of time, and there was no way for the Borg to counter them or effectively block them. Their railgun rounds were so powerful that they totally overloaded the best and most powerful Borg shields, destroying them and still allowing the rounds to penetrate the shield and the ship that it protected. And all of their other weapons were just as bad, and just as powerful. There were even weapons that the Borg didn't even know enough about to know what type of weapon was destroying their ships. One second the ship existed, and a small fraction of a second later, there wasn't anything to show that it had ever even existed.

It had been several weeks since the Borg had left the system in full retreat. Janeway had finally come to grips with the fact that the Borg had left the system, and that they had been in full retreat. They had been so soundly beaten that they had run in terror from the system after Kahmmhi had told them that her small scout force would return to their Clan, report the actions of the Borg, and fifty Clans would now be hunting Borg and destroying every Borg ship or planet that they found on sight.

Janeway had thought that Kahmmhi's threat had been a great use of psychological warfare. It wasn't until she had congratulated Kahmmhi that she had discovered that it hadn't been a threat or a ploy. When she reached her Clan, they would contact all of the other Clans and warn them about the Borg, and from that point on, any Borg ship or system that the Clan encountered would immediately be destroyed.

The only reason that idea didn't bother Janeway was that she knew that Kahmmhi's Clan was on the other side of a cyclic wormhole, and that it was possible that they were actually in another galaxy. At first, the idea had seemed kind of farfetched, but after seeing how the Clan operated, learning about their war and their enemy, and going over the science with Tuvok and Seven, she was convinced that they weren't from this galaxy, and that actually made her feel relieved. She didn't want to think about the possibility that the Consortium could come here. If they ever arrived here, nothing in the galaxy that she knew about could possibly stand against them. Every species here, including the Borg, would be destroyed, enslaved, or driven out.

'Captain, we're ready to begin the initial tests to determine structural integrity limits.'

Janeway nodded and tapped her comm badge. 'I'll be right there, Chakotay.'

She hurried to the bridge, then assumed her position in the command chair. 'You have the scheduled series of maneuvers, Mr. Paris?'

'Aye, captain.'

Harry smiled. 'Course is already plotted in and displayed, captain. We have a series of small, fast, maneuvers to test out the gravitic engines planned for the first series.'

Janeway nodded. 'Execute the first series of maneuvers as soon as B'elana informs us that the Clan monitors are ready to begin, Mr. Paris.'

'Aye, sir.' Tom prepared his station, then contacted B'elana.

'Torres.'

'You ready yet?'

'The Clan techs are ready to go. On your mark.'

Tom moved the controls, and Voyager began moving across the system at just over half of its maximum speed if they had been using the old impulse engines. Ten minutes later, they completed the set of maneuvers.

'B'elana, did we have any problems?'

'Nothing came up on any of the stress sensors. Everything was in the green. All of the Clan techs have already reported in, and Ahrlyhhn says that everything is clean and green.'

'Begin the second series, Mr. Paris.'

Voyager spent the next three days going through a series of tests to make sure that their compensators and structural integrity fields were capable of handling all of the stresses that the ship would be subjected to during normal maneuvers. The gravitic engines worked perfectly, and their top speed inside a system still didn't cause any problems. They quickly discovered that they were capable of speeds that were greater than the best that Voyager's impulse engines could manage. Not only was Voyager now faster, but now the ship was capable of maneuvers that had seemed physically impossible before.

'Your shields are stronger than they've ever been, and your gravitic engines work perfectly. While you don't have the ability to actually travel in hyper by creating your own entry and exit points, your gravitic engines will allow you to move through a hyper stream, and you do have the ability to open hyper portals that occur naturally.'

Janeway nodded. 'So, when are we going to try to see if we can move through hyper?'

'Soon. We're waiting for our long range scouts to report so that we know what is around us, and then we'll be able to leave this system. However, in the meantime, you can practice opening the hyper portal yourself and gather the antimatter that comes through so that you can store it. I'm sure that if you have more than you can use, the Federation can always use some more antimatter to power their engines.' She smiled. 'And if you run out of space or storage containers that are safe enough, we can always hold the excess in our own storage bays for you.'

Janeway shook her head. 'We both know that warp drives are about to become obsolete. Well, at least in terms of being the primary propulsion system that is used on StarFleet ships. Though they will still see some use to reach systems that aren't connected by hyper streams of their own.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Warp drives could become obsolete in time, but that won't happen overnight. And there are still going to be systems that don't have hyper points inside them, so you'll need some other way of traveling to those systems until your technology improves enough for you to be able to develop some other form of faster than light travel that doesn't require hyper points. Your lives are much too short to be willing to spend a few years skipping between systems doing hyper microjumps.' She smiled at Janeway's bemused look. 'Besides, the Federation will need a lot of antimatter to generate the power that is going to be required to build the new ships that they're going to require for their larger and more powerful fleets. And so will their allies.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that Kahmmhi was probably right about that. 'By the way. What does the Clan do to reach a system that has Consortium forces in it if they don't have a way to reach it through a hyper stream?'

'We go to a nearby system and then skip through real space. It could actually take a few years, but a few years isn't exactly a long time for us. Our lives aren't nearly as short as your own.'

Janeway sighed, then nodded. 'We'll try opening the hyper stream and get used to finding and controlling the portal openings.'

Janeway signed off, and Kahmmhi turned to see Virginia staring at her. 'You're not even going to tell her what we're still waiting here for, are you?'

Kahmmhi shook her head and smiled. 'Not until we know if we get the results that we're looking for or not. Either way, we'll be leaving the system soon enough, and they'll be able to return to their own people within a few more years.'

'How much longer are we going to wait?'

'Just a few more days. One way or the other, we'll leave if we haven't seen anything by then. They'll be ready to go, and I really can't justify sitting around here waiting to see if we managed to pull this off or not.'

The hive queen was relieved to realize that they had finally reached the transwarp hub that serviced this entire region of the Delta quadrant. When they came out of the transwarp conduit, she brought her entire fleet over to the hub so that they could report everything that had happened. They would need extensive repairs, more drones, and other things that only the hub could provide. She already knew that she was supposed to appear in person to discuss things with the hive queen who controlled the hub for this sector, and then they would contact the Hive Queen who ran the entire Borg Collective.

After the ships were finally stopped, she immediately transmitted a full list of the remaining repairs that had to be completed to bring all of the ships in her fleet back up to fully operational status. She beamed over the the hub, and was quickly shown into the chamber of the hive queen herself.

'Your reports are most disturbing. What you claim happened does not make sense. We can believe that your ships were destroyed, and especially those that we can see being destroyed in our own records from the surviving ships in the fleet. But some of the weapons that you seem to have encountered could not possibly exist. Not only is there no rational way to explain how such weapons could possibly work, but there is no evidence to show that any such weapons were used.'

'Then how do you explain the sudden disappearance of entire ships, with no trace of an antimatter explosion and no residual debris of any sort? It was as if every bit of matter that comprised the ship was suddenly completely destroyed at the subatomic level, leaving nothing of it behind for us to detect. Yet there was no antimatter explosion, and everything disappeared at exactly the same time.'

'We can not explain that. But there is no known phenomenon that would allow something like that to happen. And no known technology that could even begin to create something like that. It defies all of the known laws of physics.'

'We are dealing with an extremely advanced alien technology. Their ships do not appear to use warp drives, and they have completely unknown methods of propulsion.'

'We have examined the data and all of the records of your encounter with the alien species. We feel that their technology is unique, and that it must be added to the Collective.'

'We tried to assimilate them, but nothing worked. We couldn't even transport onto Voyager. They had already added some type of hull armor to the ship that prevented transporters from functioning. And we were never able to get close enough to any of their ships to even attempt to transport aboard their ships.'

'We must assimilate them. Their technology is necessary for the continued existence of the Borg Collective. They must be assimilated, and their technology must be added to our own. If we do not assimilate them, their technology and their race will pose a threat to the very existence of the Collective.'

'They can keep us from detecting their ships, and they intend to destroy our own ships on sight.'

'That is why they must be assimilated. They are a threat to the entire Collective, and only by making their technology our own can we protect ourselves from them.'

The hive queen was going to try to argue with her, questioning whether this was the consensus of the hive in this entire sector, or if the Hive Queen for the entire Collective had been included in this consensus. Before she could speak, an urgent call came in.

'There is some kind of very powerful energy wave building in proximity to the hub.'

Both hive queens looked at each other. 'Explain.'

'Unable to comply. Nature of this phenomenon is completely unknown.'

'This is some kind of weapon. The Clan is attacking us.'

'We are alone inside the hub. Nothing could possibly get here without us knowing about it. You said that they lack the ability to use warp travel, so they couldn't possibly use transwarp travel.'

'They boarded some of our ships. They must have planted some type of weapon on one of them.'

The hive queen looked at her as if she were defective. 'Our ships would have detected anything that they left behind. If the standard repair and service functions of the ship didn't discover it, one of the drones would have reported it or our sensors would have detected it. They couldn't possibly have hidden it from us for weeks.'

She ordered all of the unusual scans and sensor readings from the area to be displayed. They watched in horror as the area grew, and it spread from one of the scout ships to several of the nearby larger ships and to part of the hub itself.

'This is some sort of chain reaction.' The hive queen sounded almost calm, resigned.

The hive queen who controlled the hub looked at her, finally showing signs of fear. 'This is impossible. We must stop this.'

'HOW? We have no idea what this is, much less how it actually works. THEY are much more advanced than we are, and their weapons and technology are based upon science that we don't even understand. Didn't you even go over my report on their technology? They are much more of a threat to us than we could ever be to them.'

'You are defective. We are Borg. They will be assimilated. Their unique technology will be added to our own and will become part of the Collective. Resistance is futile.'

'Warning! The chain reaction that has been detected is growing exponentially. All matter in the vicinity of the hub will be consumed within twenty minutes.'

Both hive queens were jerked back to reality and the gravity of their situation by the computerized alert.

'We must save as much of our fleet as we can. You must order them from the hub.'

The hive queen shook her head. 'All ships are to move to the transwarp conduit and travel to the designated system at their best speed. Assimilate the alien species known as Clan that you find there. Immediate compliance is required.'

'Compliance.' The signal was repeated hundreds of times, and the hive queen watched in horror as ships began to move toward the transwarp conduit, all of them obeying the orders of the hive queen who ran the hub for this entire sector.

'You must stop them. All of them are heading in that direction. Don't you understand?'

Before the hub's hive queen could reply, they saw the sensors indicate that the growing chain reaction was jumping from the hub to some of the ships as they went by, crossing too close to the hub in their haste to comply with the command immediately. As those ships began to join the reaction mass, it spread along the closely packed line of ships and then jumped to the nearest two transwarp conduits.

The two of them stood and watched in horror as the growing reaction spread. Three minutes later, the room that they were in became part of the reaction mass and they were consumed as well. The last thing that they were able to do before they were consumed was to send a warning to the Hive Queen of the entire Borg Collective. That cut off abruptly as they were consumed. Ten minutes later, when the reaction ran out of reaction mass, the entire hub went off like a small nova. The explosion destroyed everything in the entire area, including the ends of several of the remaining transwarp conduits that led to the hub itself. One of them was close enough that it began a chain reaction of its own.

By the time the last of the effects were over, the entire transwarp hub had been completely destroyed, along with everything inside it. The ends of four transwarp conduits were damaged so badly that they would require very extensive repairs before they could be used for anything other than small scout craft. Two transwarp conduits had been completely consumed by the chain reactions, and had been destroyed without a trace. Every bit of matter that had been consumed in the reaction had been converted to pure energy the the effects of a single sunbuster, leaving nothing but energy behind in the vast emptiness of subspace.

The hive queen was back in the first system where the anomalies had been detected, and was waiting there with her scout force while monitoring the system that they had come from. She didn't expect to be able to detect much from this distance, but she was still wanting to see if there was one thing that she could detect at this distance. If she was correct, she'd see at least one more wormhole event at this distance when the enemy, either Voyager or the Clan, left the system that they had encountered them in.

The wait was long, lonely, and boring, but after about two weeks she began detecting wormhole events in the system. There was one event every few days, and sometimes two events in a single day. She wasn't sure what they were doing, but she was certain that if she had still been in the area, her small scouting vessels would have been destroyed before those events began happening.

Kahmmhi smiled as Virginia commed her, waking her from sleep. There were only a few reasons that Ginny would bother waking her, and all of them were good from her point of view.

'What do you have, Ginny?'

'We just got the reports from the remote platforms that are in the other systems. There was a huge wave of energy that flowed through the transwarp conduit that we could detect, followed by a huge spike and then nothing.'

'And your analysis?'

'The sunbuster took out that transwarp conduit at least. We don't know for sure what else it took out, but that conduit is gone.'

'Yeah, I agree. Nothing else would match that type of signature. When Janeway and her crew are up and on their normal shift, we can leave the system and begin working our way back toward the Alpha quadrant. I'm sure that they're all getting eager to get home after being stuck out here on their own for so long.

'Roger. I'll inform her when the command shift on her ship begins. I'll recall all of our small craft and form up the claw for travel. Two of the assault frigates will lead, with scouts out ahead of them.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Approved. Standard ROE if they run into anything. Check it out, gather intel, and let us know about the situation so that we can evaluate the data and determine a response. If they find any Borg, let us know and we'll come out of hyper on top of their asses and send them all straight to hell before they even know what hit them.'

'Roger, Tahr Kahnnhi. I'll let them know.'

Janeway and the rest of her crew were tense and nervous as they finally approached the hyper stream portal. They had never traveled through a hyper stream before, and their one probe that they had sent into the very same hyper stream had been destroyed when it hit the walls of the hyper stream and reacted with the antimatter that lined the walls of the hyper stream itself. Voyager had been enhanced with very strong, thick, durable hull armor and shields that outclassed anything that the Federation had ever built, but it was still unnerving to think about the fact that you were moving through a tunnel that was composed of pure antimatter and energy.

They had watched part of Kahmmhi's scout claw enter the portal ahead of them, and they were following the Rolling Thunder into hyper. Two of the scout fire cruisers and two assault frigates would follow them into hyper, bringing up the rear of the formation. It was disconcerting to see the Clan ships enter hyper and not be able to detect their passage at all. There was no neutrino flux or spike when a Clan ship entered or exited hyper, whether they were using their stealth systems at the time or not.

They entered hyper, and there was silence on the bridge for several seconds before everyone began smiling and quietly celebrating the very first Federation voyage into hyperspace. This would mean a lot of changes for the Federation and their allies once they returned and brought this new technology to them. But the real reason for their celebration was that they all realized that they were going home, and that this meant that their journey would end in just a few more years, rather than after several more decades.

The hive queen studied the readings from the scans intently, watching as the scan was replayed several times. Finally, she was satisfied that this meant that at least someone had left the system that Voyager had been in. There was a wormhole opening that had been maintained for a while, then a large blip of something entering or exiting the wormhole, and then it had ended very shortly afterwards. Now there was nothing on her scanners.

She ordered her fleet to resume their return, having completed the mission that the other hive queen had given to her during her retreat back to the hub that controlled this sector of the Delta quadrant. They began their journey to the transwarp conduit that led to this area, connecting it to the hub. In just a few more days at high warp, they would reach it, and then they would be able to return to the hub and rejoin the Collective.

The hive queen scanned the entire area one more time, searching frantically now that the first three scans had failed to detect anything at all. Even if they had lost part of the transwarp conduit due to enemy attacks, she should still be able to at least open a portal into subspace and detect the rest of the conduit. But there was nothing at all, and no opening to subspace was available in this system.

The hive queen was perplexed. This was strange. They were at the proper coordinates in the correct system, so there was no reason why she should not be able to enter the transwarp conduit and use it to travel to the hub that controlled this region. Only there was nothing. The Clan hadn't followed her, so they shouldn't have been able to detect this conduit when it wasn't in use. That was the beauty of using the transwarp conduits. They allowed you to travel safely through subspace much faster than you could travel through real space inside a warp bubble, and the transwarp conduits were completely undetectable to anything that was operating in real space. The only time that you could detect a transwarp conduit was when the Borg came out of transwarp and entered real space, and even then you had to be within sensor range of the event to detect it. That meant that nobody could just come through and find the transwarp conduit and use it for their own ships to travel through.

It didn't take long for her to determine her best course of action. If there was no transwarp conduit here, then it had to have been destroyed. No matter how unlikely that was, it had to be the correct answer. That meant that she would have to use regular warp travel through real space to make her return to the Collective. Now, the difficult part. If this conduit was destroyed, then it was likely that something had happened to destroy it. So, should she try to make her way to the hub that controlled this sector, or should she move to the nearest other conduit that she knew about and make her way to the next hub?

The question was important, as was the outcome. If the hub in this sector had been destroyed, and that was why the conduit had been destroyed, then going there would require years of travel at high warp speed in real space, and would end up with her finding nothing except the remnants of the attack. Then there would be the real potential that it would take even more years for her small fleet to travel to the next hub from there if there weren't any of the other transwarp conduits left intact and functional. Eventually, she determined that the safe thing to do would be to spend the several years that it would take for her small force to travel through real space at high warp and make their way to the next transwarp conduit that she knew of. It should be intact, and then they would only have to travel for a couple of months through that conduit to get to the next transwarp hub that the Collective had built in this part of the galaxy. If she was wrong about what had happened to the transwarp hub in this region, then the Collective would know all about the threat that the Clan posed long before she arrived. But, if she was right, then she would get the warning to the rest of the Collective several years earlier than she would probably be able to otherwise.

She issued the orders, and her small fleet began moving at high warp along the course that she had chosen. She had several years to go over all of the data that she had available on the Clan, and there wasn't much else for her to do in order to occupy her time during the trip. The importance of her current mission was so great that she couldn't even stop to assimilate anything that she discovered along the way. She couldn't take the risk that it wasn't a Clan trap. Hopefully, she could discover something useful about the Clan, their technology, or their tactics. Something that the Borg could use to give them at least a chance to assimilate this valuable, unique technology. Something that might save the Borg from the annihilation that the Clan had promised. If she couldn't, then it was highly probable that the entire Borg Collective was doomed.

**Part Two**

**I Can't Believe That You're Still Alive**

Janeway and her crew quickly became accustomed to the routine that the Clan used to travel from system to system through hyperspace, and they quickly learned how to efficiently harvest AM while they were traveling in hyper between systems. Paris and some of the crew were getting a lot of practice in using their new shuttlecraft for exploring systems, and they were realizing that while they couldn't simply beam on and off of their ship any longer to do away missions or explorations, or to meet others on planets in systems that they passed through, neither could anyone with transporter technology simply beam aboard their ship any more. There was security in knowing that nobody could enter your ship without you knowing about it. Nobody except for the Clan would even think about ramming a ship through all of that hull armor simply to breach your hull and enter your ship.

As they traveled, they learned more and more about the Clan. They spent time aboard the Rolling Thunder, and Clan members spent time aboard Voyager helping them to maintain and repair things so that they didn't have to worry about breaking down or blowing a compensator during any sudden or urgent maneuvers. There were times when Kahmmhi held drills, and Voyager participated, learning how well their new lasers worked and how to fire them extremely accurately. Paris and some of the crew even manned some of the shuttles and launched so that they had their own fighter escort out to protect Voyager from any enemy small craft.

Now that Janeway and the others had seen how destructive and capable even small craft such as their own shuttles could be, they no longer thought it strange that the Clan put so much emphasis on small craft in warfare. They could be very destructive and potentially lethal, even in fleet combat against ships that were much larger and more powerful than Voyager currently was. And while it would take longer for them to destroy a ship such as a Grak battleship because of the immense, thick armor that it had, those small craft could do it on their own.

Janeway spent much of her free time going over new tactics with Chakotay, Paris, Tuvok, Seven, and B'elana. They discussed the best ways to use the capabilities of their new shuttles, as well as how to best use them to protect Voyager and allow Voyager to deliver as much damage as possible to any enemy ship that they encountered. B'elana had talked with the Clan techs, and she now knew many of the reasons why Clan ships didn't show up when they entered or left hyper, and she could work out things theoretically at least well enough to grasp the general concepts that were involved, but they still didn't know enough about hyperspace and the portals to devise a way to keep Voyager from "making a splash", as the Clan called it, when they entered a system or left it. That wasn't as much of a problem for them right now as it would have been, since Voyager now had a full stealth system built into the ship. Nobody could actually detect the ship itself, so they wouldn't be targeted and attacked while they were traveling.

As they went through the systems, Janeway realized that the Clan wasn't interested in stopping to explore, chat with the local civilizations, or anything else. If they needed resources, they simply landed in an uninhabited area, collected what they needed, and left. Most of what they needed or wanted could be made with their synthesizers, and since all that required was raw materials and antimatter, both were readily available in the depths of space and from hyperspace respectively.

Voyager did use their sensors to scan every system that they went through, and as they went, they were making the very first hyper map for the Federation and their allies. They could use it to get to this point in the Delta quadrant when they decided that it was time to begin exploring in this direction. Seven was kept very busy in astrogation charting all of the systems that they went through and plotting their positions in real space. There was no real decipherable pattern to the connections that hyper streams made between systems in hyperspace because there were so many variables that affected how the streams connected, what systems they connected to, and how many branches and connections there were when certain streams combined.

When they passed through the system that had once been the home system of the Founders, the alien race of shapeshifters who had controlled the entire Dominion, Janeway and her crew didn't even know. All that they knew was that the Clan hyper maps that they had been given showed that it had once been under Dominion control, and that it was still a potentially hostile system.

There had been several systems where Voyager recognized the technology as belonging to someone that they had run into or heard of from other races during their time in the Delta quadrant. They even passed through at least one system that was occupied by the Kazon, but their ships weren't detected, and they went through the system without any problems with the Kazon at all. It seemed that even though their stealth was primitive by Clan standards, even those races in the Delta quadrant that had cloaking technology couldn't detect their ships at all. Janeway had been surprised when she had first learned that many of the ships that Tuvok was detecting and scanning were actually still cloaked.

When she had asked about that, Tuvok had explained that Seven had worked with the Clan techs to make sure that their sensors were calibrated, as well as they could be, to work and function through the Clan stealth systems and still scan. Some of the modifications that the Clan had been forced to make, purely for the safety of Voyager's crew, had expanded the capabilities of their sensors well beyond anything that either StarFleet or the Federation was currently capable of doing on their own. They had the technology to build the systems, and they could maintain them, but they hadn't discovered how to do something like that before.

They had been traveling for more than two years when Kahmmhi contacted Janeway. 'OK. I'm afraid that you are going to hate this part. There isn't another system that connects to this one by hyper. Well, there are, but they don't lead where we want to go.'

'Yeah, we're at the end of the map that you gave us. So, how do we travel from here?'

'Um, well, we could skip across the distance in just a few days with our ships, since they can make much longer skips than our small craft can. But you can't skip because you haven't figured out how to develop hyper portal generators of your own yet. You have to be able to open your own hyper portal and enter it before you can do microjumps. And skipping is kind of stressful on your compensators.'

Janeway nodded. 'So, we're limited to about five light seconds per hour. Right. Where are we going, and how long is it going to take?'

'It took our scouts about six weeks to skip from this system to the location that we're going to head for. At your best speed, that will take about six months. There is another option, though, captain.'

'And that is?'

'We do have several areas that we could use to store your ship in during transit, but it might also be possible for some of our ships to tow you, kind of like what we do when we have to tow a damaged ship. Their fields should keep you from experiencing too much stress during the maneuvers.'

'How long would that take?'

'Several weeks. We'd have to stop after each jump and make sure that all of your compensators and structural integrity fields were OK, then plan the next jump. Much longer than what it would take us if we were doing this on our own, but much faster than moving through real space using gravitics.'

'And the risks?'

'Your ship should probably survive anything short of a catastrophic compensator failure. But you're not Alphas, so members of your crew could be injured or killed if they are in the wrong part of the ship during a local failure of any of your inertial compensators.'

'If you don't mind, we'll take the safe approach.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Wise choice, captain. We'll begin moving at your best speed and maintain formation. Don't worry, nobody from the Alpha quadrant is going to know that we're here until we come out through the wormhole at DS9.' She chuckled. 'Don't worry about us arriving unannounced, though. Not only are they kind of used to us doing that to them there, but they're generally very happy to see us.'

Janeway nodded, realizing that THAT was probably an understatement of galactic proportions. After what the Clan had done for the Bajorans and everyone else at DS9 during the war with the Dominion, they were probably heroes throughout the entire Alpha quadrant. Even most of the Cardassians probably appreciated what the Clan had done, since the civil war had really been hard on the common people of Cardassia after the Obsidian Order and the Jem Hadar had subjugated all of Cardassia and put the entire Cardassian Empire under the control of the Founders and the Dominion. Spending all of that time traveling through hyper had given everyone aboard Voyager a lot of time to catch up on their reading. She had spent much of that time going over all of the materials that the Clan had given to them about their time at DS9, and about the entire battle with the Dominion. If she hadn't seen how they had hammered the piss out of the Borg, Janeway would have been impressed as hell by the tactics that they had used against the more than five thousand ship fleet that had attacked DS9. It was still impressive, but it didn't leave her dumbfounded.

They were approaching the wormhole that connected this region of the Delta quadrant to DS9, and everyone aboard Voyager was nervous and tense. They had no idea what to expect upon their sudden, unexpected return to the Federation, and she was aware that some of the crew were also tense and nervous because they would be facing potential charges for their activities that had been conducted while they were with the Maquis.

Kahmmhi had noted that some of Janeway's crew seemed very nervous and agitated, so she asked Janeway about it. Once Janeway explained the entire situation, Kahmmhi nodded.

'The Federation won't be doing anything to prosecute them or mistreat them.'

'You can't simply make a statement like that.'

'I can. And I can enforce it. If necessary, I'll put them under diplomatic protection. Of course, if they'd rather take things up with my father or my grandfather, I'm fairly certain that I could arrange that as well.'

Janeway stared at the girl, then realized that she was deadly serious. One thing that the Clan didn't do well, simply because they never seemed to do it, was bluff. She informed her crew of Kahmmhi's intentions, and that seemed to calm everyone down a lot. Of course, a few days later, even she was nervous and excited as they finally approached the wormhole.

'Damn. After spending all of that time in hyper, you'd think that I wouldn't be so worried about one little trip through a common, everyday, garden variety wormhole.'

Chakotay chuckled. 'Captain, you shouldn't be so nervous. What we've accomplished is more than anyone could have ever expected. With such a small ship, alone in the Delta quadrant, and so much of your crew killed or missing from the very beginning. We've never even had enough personnel to form the bare minimum operational crew for the ship.'

Janeway nodded, knowing that he was right. 'So, do you think that Kahmmhi is going to have to threaten them to get them to treat you and the other "volunteer draftee" members of this motley crew with the respect and honor that they've earned?'

Chakotay shrugged. 'I don't know. They might not worry so much about her father or her grandfather simply because it would take so long for either of them to get here.' He chuckled. 'Kahmmhi, on the other hand, is right here right now, and with her disposition...'

Janeway nodded. 'She might pull another sneak attack and just take out whatever she deems a threat?' She shook her head. 'Not likely. Though I wouldn't put it past her to "rescue" you and whatever other members of this crew who wanted to go with you and return you to the Delta quadrant in a ship that the Federation would never be capable of catching or destroying. One of their HATs would probably be large enough, though I'm sure she wouldn't send a small craft to do a small ship's job.'

Chakotay nodded.

Paris signaled. 'We're in formation and ready to enter the wormhole, captain.'

'Inform Kahmmhi, and follow them in, Mr. Paris.'

Paris nodded, and Harry smiled. 'We're finally going home.'

Chakotay and Janeway sighed. Janeway said softly, 'Home is where the heart is.'

The ship moved forward, and they were suddenly surrounded by light, moving through the wormhole, and then they were inside a system. Tuvok stood up from the sensors at his station. 'Captain, I am reading DS9. There are a number of large, powerful ships in the system that are not of any configuration that I am familiar with. They appear to be similar to the ships that were left here by the Clan, but they also appear to have been heavily modified with additional armor.

Janeway just looked at the scans in disbelief. There were three huge ships inside the system, eleven ships that were much larger than almost anything she'd ever seen in the Alpha quadrant, and ten ships that were very large and powerful. All of them were very heavily armored and they had weapons that looked almost the same as the Clan lasers that had been added to Voyager after the upgrades.

Sisko looked up from his desk as alarms went off to alert everyone on the station that there had been a wormhole event.

'Report, Mr. Worf.'

'We are detecting nothing from the wormhole. There was definitely something there to trigger an opening, but none of the ships in the system are detecting any ships inside the system.'

Sisko nodded. 'Any comments?'

'I doubt that it is the Dominion. Our new sensors detect their best cloaking without any problems, and I seriously doubt that they could have made such dramatic improvements in their cloaking systems to allow them to evade our new sensors.'

Sisko nodded. 'Still, have the ships in the system maintain high levels of readiness.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Captain, we have an incoming message.'

'Who is it from?'

The comm officer looked pale and drawn, and was unable to answer. Sisko sighed. 'Put it on the screen.'

Sisko was shocked when the image appeared on his monitor. 'Commander... Sorry. Captain Sisko. Congratulations on your promotion.'

'Who the...? That's impossible.'

Janeway smiled as she stood and saluted. 'Captain Catherine Janeway of the Starship Voyager reporting for duty, sir.'

'I can't believe that you're still alive.'

Janeway laughed. 'Well, we're kind of surprised to be here ourselves, since our best efforts would have put us here about fifty or sixty years from now. But we kind of made a few discoveries, and they led to us running into an old friend of yours, so we were able to return much sooner than expected.'

'An old friend?'

Another image appeared on his screen as it split to show the two of them side by side. 'Why, hello, Benjamin. I see that StarFleet managed to get some of the ships in the fleet that we gave you operational, and they left enough of them here to act as a deterrent to any forces from the Dominion that might try to attack this system.'

Benjamin smiled. 'Kahm. It's good to see you again. I wasn't expecting to see you for at least another five to ten years. I figured that you'd be out hunting Borg until the very last minute.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'We considered that option, but after we met Janeway, things kind of went in a way that we weren't expecting.' She smiled very sweetly and innocently. 'Though we did get a chance to play with some of the Borg who came to try to assimilate Voyager for their technology.'

'I hope that you're going to let me watch the vids.'

'Oh, yes. I've got copies for you, Worf, and a few other close friends. And I'm sure that we can give a few copies to your superiors and their counterparts.' She chuckled. 'We wouldn't want them to feel left out of the fun, now, would we?'

Sisko looked confused. 'Captain Janeway, what happened to your ship?'

Janeway smiled. 'It's in the system with you, Captain. We had made a few discoveries on our own, and the Clan helped us improve upon them and work out some of the initial bugs so that we could return here much more quickly than we could otherwise. And while they were at it, they helped us rebuild the ship, so we have a few minor upgrades over any of the standard Voyager class vessels.'

'I look forward to hearing the details. It seems that you have fully functioning stealth on your ship. I'm very surprised, since they didn't really do that for us before they left.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'We helped them tweak their systems, but by the time that we first found them, they had already developed a different type of cloaking technology that was better than anything that we had seen in the Alpha quadrant during our previous visit. By the time that we helped them increase the number of emitters and fine tune them, they had the equivalent of early first generation stealth.'

Sisko's eyebrows raised. 'Wow. I AM impressed. You must have one hell of an engineer, and one hell of a crew, captain.'

Janeway smiled. 'That I do, captain. That I do. Those of us that are still alive have had a lot to do just in order to survive in the Delta quadrant. Believe me, by the time that we ran into Kahmmhi and the Clan, we were a lot more used to fighting just to survive than we had been before we left.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Well, Benjamin, do you want us to come over for a visit, or do you want to chat over the open comm all day?'

Sisko burst out laughing. 'Where are my manners? Of course. Come aboard, oh, lovely ladies, and allow me to show you the courtesy of my hospitality. I'm sure that StarFleet will be shocked to hear that you are back, and even more shocked to hear that Captain Janeway and her ship have returned from the dead.'

'We'll need two docking ports. I'll come over in my normal ride, and I'm sure that Captain Janeway will bring one of her shuttles.'

Sisko looked puzzled. 'Why wouldn't she just beam over?'

Janeway smiled. 'Transporters no longer work to get anything on or off of my ship. As the Borg found out, much to their surprise and dismay.'

Sisko nodded as the screen went blank. This was going to be very interesting. 'Mr. Worf, why don't you let your wife and the rest of my staff know that we're going to have guests? We can all meet at Quark's place and have a nice, relaxing meal. I'm sure that Quark will enjoy knowing that Kahmmhi is in the system again.'

Worf nodded. 'Undoubtedly. He's been almost pining since she left. I think that he actually likes her.'

Sisko nodded, and the two of them quickly began making preparations for the meeting that was about to take place. Just when he thought that Kahmmhi couldn't possibly come up with anything else to surprise him...

Sisko and Worf were waiting to greet Kahmmhi at the docking ring when she disembarked from her HAT. All four of her Shadows were with her, and most of Max's Raider platoon got off of the ship as well.

'Max and his platoon are going to surprise Quark and see if the holodeck is open so that they can play. They've missed the ability to kill things endlessly.'

Worf chuckled. 'Yes, I can see where they could miss being able to enjoy working out like that. It does allow you to work out your aggressions.'

Max and the others hurried off, and Kahmmhi and Benjamin began chatting and catching up as they walked over to the next docking station, where Janeway's shuttle was docking. As they came off of the shuttle, Janeway and the others went through the formal ceremony for boarding the station.

Sisko went forward and greeted Janeway warmly. 'We had thought that your ship and crew were lost, and that all of you were dead long ago.'

'Believe me, we thought that we were going to die many times over the years. It was hard for us, and we lost well over half of our crew before we regained control of our ship.'

Sisko looked intrigued. 'Regained control of your ship?'

As they walked toward Quark's bar, Janeway quickly related the bare essentials of what had happened to her, her ship, and her crew, and how they had initially been transported deep inside the Delta quadrant. When she explained how she and the survivors of the Maquis ship had worked together, and how they had become part of her crew, Sisko was amazed.

'We're still somewhat worried that StarFleet or someone in the Federation Council will try to charge them for their activities and the actions that they took while they were still with the Maquis.'

Sisko nodded. 'I'm certain that could be a possibility, but I'm sure that they'd have to take their actions after joining your crew into account.'

Paris looked dubious. 'Sir, I may be a bit biased, but judging from my own personal experience...'

Sisko nodded. 'Um, yeah. I see your point. Politicians have their own agendas, and everything changes with the political climate and the circumstances.'

Worf snorted, and Sisko knew that he was thinking about his own problems that he'd had in the past with the Klingons concerning his family's honor. Not that hiding the cowardice and duplicity of the Duras family had ever done anything to deserve staining the honor of the family that had actually defended Kitamer against the Romulans in favor of hiding their own complicity with the Romulans. That decision had certainly come back to bite the Klingons on the ass. It had almost led to the destruction of the Klingon Empire more than once, had led to an actual civil war, and had almost led to the Klingon Empire being put under Romulan control.

Kahmmhi smiled. 'If the Federation wishes to play political games, I will personally guarantee their safety, since they came here under the protection of the Clan. And if they wish to really give us problems about it, I will remove the individuals in question in order to guarantee that the Federation doesn't abrogate the terms of our agreement with them.'

Sisko looked confused. 'How could they possibly do that?'

'Seven, Paris, and B'elana are technically not members of either StarFleet or the Federation. And they were all very highly involved in the development of certain technologies that we didn't agree to share with the Federation during our previous visit. And while their original scientific discoveries were made independently using your current technology, only our own intervention allowed them to adapt those new discoveries and make them functional in their current form. And since that is the only reason that they were able to reach this system now, rather than in another thirty or forty years from now, if at all, we consider that reason enough to give them all political asylum, I believe you call it.'

Sisko burst out laughing. 'I doubt that anyone would push things that far, Kahm. Especially if they think that you're serious about doing something like that.'

Worf chuckled softly. 'They know her.'

Sisko nodded. 'Yeah. They know that she'll do it.'

As they reached Quark's bar, they found that Sisko's staff already had several tables in one area secured so that they could all sit, eat, drink, relax, and talk. As soon as they entered, Quark hurried from behind the bar and came over to seat them himself.

'Welcome back, Tahr Kahhni. It's very good to see you again. This place hasn't been the same since you left.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Why thank you, Quark.'

Krohn snorted. 'I'll just bet it hasn't been the same. Probably really quiet and no problems at all. Boring.'

Quark chuckled. 'You just say that to see if you can get a rise out of me, Krohn. You know that I don't mind the occasional scuffle. Not only is it good for business to have people talking about the place as long as it's the normal minor disagreements, but I can always replace my old furniture with new furniture at someone else's expense when they break it. It certainly never hurts the profit margin.' He chuckled. 'In fact, since I get new furniture when they break the old stuff, it really helps my profit margin, since I have much less old furniture to replace because it has worn out and needs to be replaced because of age.'

Krohn nodded. 'I have to give you that one, Quark. And it is only fair, since they did break it in the first place.'

'Please, join your friends and relax, Tahr Kahhni. What can I get for you? Your usual drinks? And would you like a meal, or would you rather have something as a snack?'

Janeway and her officers just stared at Quark in shock, not knowing what to make of his behavior. He was being nice, solicitous, and almost fawning all over Kahmmhi without even hinting at anything inappropriate. Kahmmhi and her Shadows told him what they'd like, and he scuttled off to get it for them immediately. Before they could even all get seated, several waitresses were taking the rest of their orders.

'I can't believe how attentive he's being. I've never seen a Ferengi act so cordial and attentive to anything that wasn't making him tons of profit.'

Sisko laughed. 'Quark knows that Kahmmhi saved his bar from the Dominion, and she also traded him some Clan synthesizers in exchange for other things, and that's made him rich without even pulling any scams or any shady dealings at all. And, of course, even though he never charges them full price, Clan members eat so much that he makes out like a bandit.'

B'elana looked at Sisko in shock. 'A Ferengi who doesn't charge customers full price?'

'It was part of their deal. Until their contract with him runs out, he only charges them his actual cost for the stuff that they eat or drink here. After that, they pay their way, just like everyone else.'

Jadzia laughed. 'Yeah. Only he won't charge Kahmmhi and her Shadows for anything. They still tip all of the waitresses, but he won't let them pay. And he is always trying to find her favorite dishes so that he can give her what she likes best whenever she eats here.'

Kyra nodded. 'That reminds me, Kahm. If you're going to be eating here, try some of the new dishes that he got in since you left. He imported some really good Bajoran delicacies, and most of them are seafood. I remember how much you liked the seafood.'

Quark came back with several waitresses carrying trays of food, and they began serving everyone at the tables, placing heaping plates of food in front of the Clan members. 'I'll have some death by chocolate khorb nut pie for you for dessert, so make sure that you save room, Tahr Kahhni.'

'Why thank you, Quark. That is so considerate. But you really didn't need to go to any trouble for us.'

Quark smiled. 'No trouble at all, Tahr Kahhni. Nothing is too good for the person who defeated the Dominion and eliminated all of the shapeshifters in this quadrant.'

Kyra cleared her throat. 'Uh, Quark, what about Odo?'

Quark looked at her. 'Odo? He doesn't count. He's a good guy. Not like the rest of those Dominion bas...'

'Quark!' Jadzia cut him off.

Quark looked embarrassed. 'Um, er, sorry. Slip of the tongue. I'll be right back with the next course as soon as you're ready for it. Don't let me keep you from talking and catching up.'

Sisko waited until Quark left, then looked over at Kahmmhi. 'He is right that the Federation and our allies have still been nervous. We know that the Dominion won't take their defeat lightly, and that they will probably try to launch at least some type of probing attacks to find out how our defenses are and send some scouts to try to find out what happened to their fleet, since none of them managed to get away to tell them what happened in the Alpha quadrant.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'I wouldn't worry too much about them coming here, Benjamin. Unless the new rulers of the Dominion are dead set on following the path of their predecessors, they will probably be spending a lot of time trying to consolidate their control over what is left of the Dominion.'

Worf raised and eyebrow questioningly. 'What is LEFT of the Dominion?'

'Uh, yeah. We did find the planet that the Founders lived on during our travels through the Delta quadrant, and they were trying to assemble another massive invasion fleet to come here and attack the Alpha quadrant so that they could establish a foothold, so we kind of did our best to discourage them and convince them that doing that would be a very bad idea.'

Sisko looked concerned. 'Did you lose any ships?'

Kahmmhi shook her head and smiled. 'Um, no, but they did lose their planet, their fleet, and all of the Founders who were on either of them.'

'Kahm, what did you do?' Sisko looked as astonished as all of the other Federation officers at the tables.

'The same thing that my grandfather would have done. Exactly what I told you I was going to do if I ever found their freaking planet. We slammed it with a sunbuster and let the explosion take out the fleet that was in orbit around the planet.'

Jadzia shook her head. 'If I remember how that weapon works correctly, there isn't anything left of either the planet or the fleet but random particles of energy.'

'That's about all that we could detect when the reaction was over.' Brynhe smiled cheerfully.

'So, have you been doing anything else to keep yourselves from getting bored while you explored the Delta quadrant?'

Kahmmhi smiled at Kyra. 'Well, we found some of StarFleet's lost personnel and their ship. And we played with the Borg for a while in the system that they tracked Voyager to.'

Sisko and the others listened as Janeway and her officers explained what had happened in that system, and what Kahmmhi had done to the Borg as they fell into her trap. When she was done, everyone was sitting there staring at Kahmmhi in amazement.

'I don't think that the Borg are going to be trying to come near the Alpha quadrant for a while. They do know that StarFleet and other dangerous races are all located in this area, and they know that we're returning here to share our new discoveries and our new technology with everyone here.' Janeway sighed. 'Though if that does make them desperate, they may try coming here to destroy us before we can put this new technology into mass production and have enough of it to destroy them if they try to assimilate us.'

Sisko nodded. 'That may be something that they would like to do, but from what you said, they just lost at least one of their largest fleets, so they have suffered some significant losses.'

Seven shook her head. 'They could, if they wanted to, still send several times that force without stripping all of their available forces in other sectors of the Delta quadrant.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'I didn't really bother telling anyone, but we sent a bomb back with the Borg ships that we let escape. One of the ships was carrying a sunbuster that was programmed not to initiate a reaction until there was at least a minimum amount of mass near the ship so that the reaction would jump and make a much larger explosion. We detected at least one transwarp conduit being totally destroyed. From what Seven has told us, we think that we either caused serious damage or widespread destruction within the hub itself.'

Janeway looked shocked. She had seen how packed a transwarp hub was, and the idea of a single bomb destroying one of them was astonishing, even when they were talking about Clan technology.

'If you managed to do that much damage, I doubt that the Borg will even attempt to come toward the Alpha quadrant, Kahmmhi. They will be too worried about you and the other Clans coming after them to destroy them, just as you promised them before you let the battered remnants of their fleet flee the system.'

Sisko nodded. 'She's probably right.'

Kyra sighed. 'Do you have any idea how long you'll be here before you leave again, Tahr Kahhni?'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Probably a long time. We're going to remain here long enough to make sure that Janeway and her entire crew aren't in any danger, and since Voyager's crew managed to develop at least the basics of some of the things that we agreed were to be restricted for the security of your civilization, we're going to help you work out some of the initial problems with the technology so that you can use it safely.'

Jadzia perked up, looking very eager and excited. 'What kind of technology are we talking about, Kahm?'

'Well, they developed a new type of cloaking that was even better than the hybrid cloaking that you had just developed when we left, and we ended up helping them upgrade it slightly for their ship, so you could use it as the basis for first generation stealth. As you can tell, even your best and most upgraded sensors can't detect Voyager any better than they can detect our ships.'

'That would be very helpful, especially when we send any ships to the Delta quadrant.'

'And they managed to develop the early stages of gravitic drives. We helped them work out the finer points, so they have working gravitic drives that are actually better than your current impulse drives.'

'You're kidding.' Jadzia looked shocked.

B'elana smiled. 'Oh, no. Our best speed is faster than full impulse.'

Paris leaned forward eagerly. 'Oh, yeah. And the ship is capable of moving not only faster, but making all kinds of evasive maneuvers that would blow your mind. And putting the engines into our shuttles makes them capable of moving between four and five light seconds per hour, and the extra power systems make the lasers on the shuttles really powerful and effective small craft in combat.'

Kyra turned to look at him. 'Armed shuttles, similar to their fighters?'

'They're not as fast, but they do have lasers, and they can maneuver just like Clan small craft can. And they helped us armor them well enough that you can't transport anything through the hull armor.'

Kyra smiled. 'I think that the Bajorans would like to see some of the schematics for something like that. We don't really have our own navy, and while we don't have the population and resources to build and maintain something like the large fleet ships, we could maintain a small fleet of small craft for our own in system defense.'

Sisko nodded, realizing that the Bajorans would be able to use something like that very effectively.

'Anything else?'

Paris nodded. 'We can't open a hyper portal anywhere that we want, so we can't do some of the maneuvers that the Clan ships normally do, but we can open the naturally occurring hyper points inside systems, and the gravitic drives allow us to travel through the hyper streams. We gathered a LOT of antimatter while we were traveling through hyperspace.'

All conversation at the tables stopped as everyone from DS9 turned to look at them in shock. 'You can travel through hyperspace?'

Janeway nodded, smiling. 'Yes. It's exciting at first, partly because of the newness of it and partly because your heart is racing because you know that you're traveling through a column that is lined with pure antimatter, but after a while, it's even more boring than traveling at warp speed. You can't tell anything about anything that is around you except the hyper stream and the ships that are in it with you. You really are traveling to the next system while you're completely blind.'

'How long would it take her ship to reach Earth from here?'

'A few weeks. Possibly a bit longer, since her ship doesn't have warp engines any more. After the last incident with the Borg, we disabled their warp engines. We didn't have a full shipyard with us, so we had to disable Voyager's warp engines to make sure that they didn't get activated inside hyper. Just forming a warp bubble could have caused the hyper stream to collapse and bury them under the antimatter that lined its walls, so the risk of having a functional warp engine while they were traveling through hyper was just too great. We were barely able to get enough room to put in all of the gravitic engines and other upgrades with them still inside the ship, but we managed.'

'How did that affect things on the ship?'

Janeway sighed. 'Well, we don't have to worry about ruptured plasma conduits any more. Clan antimatter reactors operate completely differently from those that we used to use, and the energy collection systems are completely different as well. And while Voyager isn't as heavily reinforced as it could be if it was completely rebuilt from the proper materials, the structural integrity provided by the compensators, internal structural integrity fields, and external hull armor reinforce the ship well enough to allow it to handle all of the stresses that are encountered by any of the maneuvers that we use.'

Sisko nodded. 'So, with the upgrades that have been made to Voyager, the discoveries that they have made, and Voyager to use as a model for new construction, we could actually build ships that are capable of hyper travel?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Yes. Your ships wouldn't have all of the capabilities of ours, even if they were purpose built from the best materials that you have available, but you could build some ships that would be capable of doing exploration and reconnaissance without being readily detected. Though they would still register on sensors when they entered or exited a system through a hyper stream, they would be capable of avoiding detection other than at those times because you now have the capability to produce stealth.'

Sisko stood up and bowed to Kahmmhi. 'If you'll excuse me, I really hate to eat and run, but duty calls.'

Kahmmhi smiled and nodded. 'Of course. Have fun talking to the Federation Council and StarFleet command.'

Sisko hurried off, and the others finished their meal. When they were finished eating, Quark brought over half a dozen death by chocolate khorb nut pies. Janeway and the others were amazed by how good it tasted, and were even more surprised to discover that their synthesizers contained the program for that dessert, yet nobody on Voyager had ever tried it.

'We've had this in our synthesizers for the past several years, and we didn't even KNOW it? Do you know how many times I would have KILLED for something chocolate that tasted THIS good?'

Janeway nodded her head, agreeing with B'elana. This was too good to have not been discovered, and there were definitely times when a really good chocolate dish would have been very good. And comforting. Relaxing. Decadent. Soothing. A few more adjectives came to mind at the moment, but Janeway was too busy eating to talk or think about anything else at the moment.

Kyra sighed. 'I hope that things don't get too busy. If there is a lot going on with StarFleet and the Federation Council, it will be hard to spend any time just hanging out. And, unfortunately, we do need some of your time if Bajor is to get everything that we'll need to be able to build our own ships.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Poor, poor Kyra. You're starting to sound like Sisko. Or me. We must do what we can to make sure that you don't end up getting stuck in a position where your entire life revolves around dealing with politicians all of the time.'

Krohn snickered, and said softly, 'Yeah, doing shit like that is so bad that people get suicidal. They'd rather go out and risk their lives in combat than face a living hell like that.'

Jehryl chuckled. 'So, Krohn, are you talking about Lehr or Kohl-garh?'

'There's a difference?'

Both of them chuckled, and so did the female Shadows. Kahmmhi's remark had been really funny.

They spent several hours relaxing and chatting, with each group telling the other details about what had been happening during the past several years. Each of them had many details that the others were very interested in hearing about. Janeway's group had met numerous alien species that hadn't ever been contacted by the Federation, and had survived numerous encounters with the Borg. Seven had even been a Borg drone for most of her life.

Kahmmhi was interested in what had been going on since her departure, and listened intently as they described the progress that the Federation and their allies had made in manning, repairing, and upgrading their new fleets of ships.

'We still have some of the ships here in this system. One battleship, five battle frigates, and ten warships are part of the Federation contingent to safeguard this system. The Romulans and the Klingons have each left one battleship and three battle frigates in this system as part of their commitment to make sure that the Dominion doesn't manage to get a foothold in the Alpha quadrant by coming through the wormhole. They are all fully crewed, though they could currently still use more troops on board all of the ships. And none of them have as many small craft as we'd like. I'm sure that the opposition to putting more small craft aboard them will soon disappear.'

'Why would you think that, Worf?' Jadzia sounded almost surprised by Worf's comment.

'While many in StarFleet or the Federation Council don't approve of all of the changes that the military would like to make in the interests of security, the one thing that has allowed them to provide so much hindrance to our efforts to upgrade the fleet in the ways that Kahmmhi suggested before her departure is our lack of resources. Lack of trained personnel and the lack of capabilities for our own small craft have also played a factor.'

Kyra nodded. 'He certainly has a point there.'

'With the improvements that the new discoveries made by Voyager's crew will make possible, we can make small craft that will outperform anything that we thought we could produce for at least another century. And with the availability of so much antimatter to provide all of the power that we could possibly require, we can now afford to produce larger numbers of such ships. They won't be able to say that the manpower requirements are so insurmountable that they can't overcome them, since there are so many planets and so many qualified people in the entire Federation that they could easily come up with enough personnel to increase the size of our fleet dramatically and still man all of the ships completely. And even if StarFleet or the Federation Council does decide to drag their feet initially, once the Romulan and Klingon empires learn of this possibility and they start upgrading their own fleets, the Federation will have to do the same simply to meet their obligations according to our nonaggression pacts and agreements.'

Jadzia thought about that for a moment, then nodded. 'He's right.'

B'elana shook her head in amazement. 'I know that the Klingon Empire and the Federation were actually getting along well enough to cooperate, but an alliance? That still amazes me.'

Worf chuckled. 'Tell that to the Romulan ambassador.'

Krohn sighed, causing Kahmmhi to chuckle at his expression. 'Who did they end up appointing to THAT position?'

Jadzia giggled. 'Technically, he's not an ambassador, but it's the equivalent rank and position. Unfortunately, as he laments frequently, Admiral Karv'Tarek is the military liaison between the Federation and the Romulan empire.'

Krohn and the Shadows began chuckling softly, knowing that the admiral was loving every minute of his job when he wasn't dealing with politicians. When he was... Well, the admiral wasn't the most political person that they had met during their stay here, and he hated political intrigue and machinations almost as much as the typical Clan warrior did.

Kahmmhi nodded. 'You said that the Klingons and the Romulans have ships stationed here for security. Who is in command of them?'

'Technically, the Bajorans are in control of the entire system. Captain Sisko commands the station and the system itself, but High Captain Sorn'Kek is in command of the Romulan force here. I don't know whether or not you know the Klingon who is in command of their force. Admiral Korg is his name.'

Krohn chuckled. 'The one whose ship was hit by Admiral Stevens during the battle. Three times.'

Kahmmhi and the other Clan members laughed. They knew Admiral Korg. Kahmmhi liked him. He was a true warrior, and represented the best attributes of the Klingon Empire.

Jadzia nodded. 'You do know him. He'll probably stop by to talk to you once he knows that you're in the system again.'

Kahmmhi was pleased. The Romulans and the Klingons had both chosen very capable commanders for the ships that were to protect this system. And Sisko was reliable. Now all that they had to worry about was who commanded the Federation fleet. 'And who is in command of the Federation fleet that's stationed here?'

'Admiral Yamato.'

Kahmmhi and the others sighed and relaxed visibly. Jadzia nudged Worf, trying not to giggle. Kyra was smiling broadly. 'Yeah, we thought that you'd be worried about that.'

'What ever happened to Admiral Stevens and Commodore Richards?'

'Admiral Stevens was demoted and put through some retraining, and has been working toward regaining his former position and rank. He's doing very well, and seems to be very motivated to improve from what I've heard.'

Nobody said anything, but Jadzia didn't continue talking. After a few moments, she looked around anxiously. 'What? I really don't know what happened to Commodore Richards. He's not even in StarFleet.'

Worf chuckled. 'He was thrown out of Federation Security. I don't know what he is doing now, but I do know that all of his security clearances have been revoked. I did receive that information as part of my official duties.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'What the Federation does with people like him is an internal matter, and doesn't bother us one way or the other. Though it does give me some hope for your people when they demonstrate that, despite all of their beliefs that are so strange to us, they are willing to actually do whatever is necessary to protect themselves from something that is definitely a clear and present danger to their continued survival.'

Janeway looked confused. 'I do know that he was somewhat hostile, but what would make you say something like that about him?'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'He was a spook. And while he didn't manage to do anything to secure part of what we were giving the Federation for his own uses, we could tell that he was trying to see what he could siphon off for his own bureaucracy's use. Whenever we've seen people like that, their motives are to secure their own power, not to protect the rest of their civilization.'

Worf nodded. 'There have been several different investigations into Federation Security over the past few decades, and they have been caught violating a lot of different regulations and laws. Even some of the laws that were passed specifically by the Federation Council. It is quite possible that he was involved with some of those who were already convicted. But since your visit here, I haven't heard of any more problems with that area of the government.'

Kahmmhi looked over at Kyra. 'By the way. How did the situation with the prisoners work out?'

'Well, we got rid of all of them within the two years, just as your agreement called for. It took about a year for the Cardassians to go through all of their prisoners and determine which ones were going to be freed and which ones were going to be prosecuted or killed for their crimes. The Federation took all of the Breen prisoners off somewhere and turned them back over to the Breen. I'm not sure what they worked out with the Breen government, but they did get rid of them and we haven't had any problems with the Breen since that time.'

'What about the Jem'Haddar?'

Kyra looked somewhat embarrassed. 'Uh, well, about that. The cells you put them in did get them all off of the tetracel white, so they became much more manageable after they were no longer drugged up and raging all of the time. They waited until right at the last minute, but the Federation did come and get them. We heard that they took them all and put them on some remote planet in their own settlements.'

'Uh, huh. What is it that you aren't telling us?'

'They kind of worship the Clan. They call them godslayers, since you were able to kill the Founders. Their race had been convinced that the Founders really were gods, so when you killed them...'

Kahmmhi nodded, smiling to herself. At least she didn't have to deal with them, and since there were only male Jem'Haddar on the planet, they'd all die out within one lifetime anyway. And since they'd never learn of the fact that it was the Clan who had destroyed the Founders' entire home planet, that belief wouldn't be propagated and reinforced throughout their race.

Kyra looked excited. 'The settlements that you made are amazing. After the prisoners were removed, we started moving Bajorans into them. None of the storms on the planet have caused any problems for them, and they're thriving in one of the harshest and most hostile environments on our planet. In fact, since we were able to move them there, their standard of living has increased, and so has the overall standard of living for everyone on our planet. We've made more synthesizers, and we've managed to use them fairly well so far with alternative energy sources. And we're trying to duplicate your building techniques with somewhat less energy intensive materials so that everyone on the planet can live in houses that are as efficient and durable as possible.'

Janeway nodded. 'If you get some small craft that can go into hyper, they can also collect antimatter for you so that you can use lots of antimatter to make up for the difference between how much energy you really need to let everyone have a good standard of living and how much energy your synthesizers can generate off of alternative sources.'

Kyra nodded. 'The leaders of our planet will be very happy to hear that. Especially if we can develop our own fleet of small, in-system ships for planetary defense on our own.'

'I'll make sure that Virginia goes over all of our records and sees what we could do to help you out, Kyra. I'm sure that we could come up with a way to manufacture some type of small craft that could help your planet out.'

Brynhe smiled. 'You know, HATs would probably be large enough for them, since they're not wanting something that could go long range for extended missions. They could make some of them up for courier duty or similar missions, others for combat or system patrol missions, and some for various work missions such as collecting AM for their planet and mining some of the asteroids and space junk in the system. If nothing else, it would let them collect reaction mass and materials for synthesis.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'That could work. We don't have to build them exactly like HATs, so they could manage to get the materials and components to build their own and maintain them. And it's not like doing that would affect the agreements we have with them concerning technology exchange. We'll just be giving them the same abilities that the Federation and their allies are already going to start using and exploiting now that Voyager has brought back some working examples based on their tech abilities and components won't affect the overall technology at all.'

B'elana nodded, leaning forward eagerly. 'I could help your people work out the details on how stealth works with our current technology, and how to make the calibrations on the gravitic engines and compensators. You wouldn't require much in the way of structural integrity fields with ships that were that small, especially if they were purpose built and designed with enough hull armor and internal structural supports to help you handle all of the stresses associated with some of the more intense maneuvers.'

Jadzia leaned closer. 'Stealth? You have actual stealth technology?'

'Yeah. It's not as good as theirs, but the emitters are similar to theirs, and they work almost the same. It's just the problem that we have with power and energy utilization. And some of our materials can't handle the same stresses that theirs can, so we don't get quite the same results as they do. But none of the Romulan or Klingon ships in the system can see our ship, even though we detected all of theirs as soon as we came out of the wormhole.'

Jadzia nodded thoughtfully, realizing that StarFleet and their allies were going to be upgrading their ships very quickly to incorporate the new discoveries and put them to good use. Worf nodded his head. 'Impressive.'

'How did you manage to come up with it?'

'We were working on developing the best cloaking device that we could come up with to hide our ship from the Borg and other civilizations that we were running into so that we'd have fewer encounters with hostile races or races that were xenophobic. If we crossed their space while we were cloaked and they didn't know that we were there, they couldn't really object and make us go weeks or months out of our way just to avoid crossing space that they claimed and didn't really even use. We were trying to shave some time off of a journey that should have taken us at least another fifty years to complete.'

Everyone nodded, listening intently as B'elana explained how they had developed the first working stealth.

'Anyway, I knew a lot about cloaking technology, but I didn't remember all of the details. So, when I started building our cloaking device, we kind of had to work out our own method of generating a stable field around the ship. We ended up with something that was still energy intensive, but it worked better than either Klingon or Romulan technology did before the Clan got here. When the Clan found us, they helped us fine tune our cloaking and put exterior emitters on the ship, and once we had our hull armor upgraded, we pretty much had a very basic form of stealth.'

'And you actually discovered how to open a portal into hyperspace on your own?'

Janeway nodded. 'B'elana, Tom, and Seven did most of the work in that area on their own, though Tuvok was involved in a lot of the theoretical work, especially on the hyper portals.'

Seven nodded. 'We discovered small anomalies, and determined a way to open them up. That was actually the first time that we found hyperspace, and we learned that antimatter came out of the opening when it was open, so we used our ability to open a portal to allow us to collect large amounts of antimatter. Unfortunately, what we didn't know was that the openings not only put on a lightshow similar to that of a wormhole opening, but they also appeared similar to a wormhole opening when they were detected by anyone from outside of the system, and the Borg were tracking us and following us as they tried to find and assimilate this new technology from whatever race was able to open wormholes in systems that didn't have one.'

Janeway chuckled. 'Yes. The Borg were hunting us, and tracked us by our early attempts to enter hyperspace and explore it. They came to the system to assimilate us. Kahmmhi detected the Borg that were hunting for us while they were moving through the transwarp conduits into the area where we had opened our first hyper point, and she came to the system that she thought they were heading toward that the Clan could reach through hyper. Only she found us there instead of the Borg. Boy, was she surprised to find a Federation ship way out in the Delta quadrant when they were hunting for Borg. So she offered to help us when she realized what discoveries we'd made on our own, not even bothering to tell us that the Borg were coming. When the Borg showed up, they could barely detect our ship, but they couldn't detect Kahmmhi's ships in the system, so they kept trying to assimilate us.'

Worf chuckled. 'That was a very bad idea for the Borg.' He already knew how deadly the Clan could be when they launched a sneak attack or sprang an ambush.

Janeway nodded. 'Very. We didn't even know what was happening during the first attack. One second there were three Borg cubes moving toward our position, and the next second there wasn't anything at all within a certain distance of where the Borg cubes had been. No matter at all, a huge explosion, and no traces of an antimatter explosion.'

Jadzia nodded. 'Sounds like they used Q-bombs. They used some of them here during the battle against the Dominion forces as well. We didn't know what to think the first time that they went off.'

Janeway nodded. 'Yeah, we didn't know what to make of it, either. We found out about what they had used and how it worked later, and we learned how much damage they could actually do when they used even larger ones during a subsequent attack.'

They were still talking later when Sisko showed up again, smiling as he saw them still sitting there talking. 'Well, I knew that you guys really ate a lot, and that it sometimes took a while for you to finish eating, but this is ridiculous.'

Kahmmhi and her Shadows all burst out laughing, along with most of those who were sitting with them.

'Honestly, though, I'm kind of surprised that you are still here. I would have thought that Quark would have run you out, or at least hinted that you might want someplace more private for your discussion.'

Kahmmhi shook her head, smiling innocently. 'We've been kind of snacking, relaxing, and waiting to see if you were going to be able to make it back or if you were going to be stuck dealing with stuffed shirts all day.'

Sisko smiled wryly. 'I see that you're still keeping up on some slang. I haven't heard that term in a while, but it does still apply to politicians, doesn't it?'

'Well, some of them. I take it that news of our sudden, unexpected reappearance was received with mixed reactions.'

'Yes, you might say that. They're not sure what to make of the initial report that I made, and they're sending out a small group to handle the situation. I did inform them of your, um, shall we say "claim" on certain members of Voyager's crew if StarFleet chooses to enforce certain legal issues. At least it won't catch them off guard, and if they screw up, they'll have to worry about losing out on whatever help those individuals could give to both the Federation and their allies.'

Kyra's eyebrows went up, and Jadzia turned to look intently at Sisko. 'Uh, Sisko, exactly how badly could that affect their ability to use some of the new technology in the ways that they're going to be hoping to use them?'

Sisko looked pointedly at Janeway. 'Perhaps you could answer her question regarding that, Captain Janeway?'

Janeway cleared her throat. 'Well, Mr. Paris technically wasn't part of StarFleet when we began our journey, so he's a free agent of sorts. As our expert pilot and one of the few people who actually worked out all of the details of our new propulsion systems, he would be the one who could give them a lot of insight into how they work and how to fine tune the systems using our technology. And while you know that half of my crew is composed of, shall we say, "volunteer draftees" who were the survivors of the Maquis ship that we were chasing when we were both taken to the Delta quadrant, many of our scientific breakthroughs came about in large part due to their efforts.'

Jadzia looked at her querulously. 'How much could that actually affect the information and details of the new technology that they are going to be most interested in?'

'Well, my first officer and my chief engineer are both former Maquis. In fact, B'elana was the one who developed our stealth, and who helped come up with the tweaks that made it work for us. She was also the one who helped actually build and develop our new propulsion system, and who worked out all of the modifications with the Clan experts. And, if you want to be technical, while she isn't exactly an ex member of the Maquis, Seven of Nine is a former Borg, and she was responsible for doing much of the other research into the development of the gravitic drives, as well as much of the theoretical research into the technology that we used to initially develop our ability to enter hyperspace. She is not technically a Federation citizen, and she's definitely not part of StarFleet. And Mr. Paris was in a penal colony, so he's technically not StarFleet either.'

Sisko chuckled. 'Yeah. I can see where sending someone who is heavy handed is going to be extremely counterproductive to the goals that both StarFleet and the Federation Council have for this new technology. Even if you weren't offering them asylum from any prosecution, our allies would insist on treating them with less hostility and much more restraint. The Federation may have some claims on the technology and the ship, as well as at least some members of the crew, but the welfare of the entire Alliance does come first in this matter, according to our treaties and agreements.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'And here I thought that nobody would even think of that.'

'Or that that's the reason why you offered to give them asylum in the first place. So that there wouldn't be any friction between the members of the Alliance if the Federation screwed up and sent someone who needed to be replaced.'

Kahmmhi's Shadows chuckled among themselves, tossing a few choice comments in Llyriana back and forth between them. Kahmmhi tried to ignore their comments, but couldn't help smiling at a few of them. 'You know that it's not polite to speak in Llyriana when you know that their translators can't handle the language.'

Krohn smiled and bowed formally to her. 'We will be very glad to apologize, both profusely and sincerely, if anyone here wishes to claim that they felt in any way slighted or discomforted by our exchange, Tahr Kahhni.'

Kyra smiled. 'I'm just sorry that I missed out on the comments because they seemed to be very funny. Though at least I don't have to worry about saying anything that StarFleet could use against me, since I'm Bajoran. My government doesn't actually discourage mistrust of StarFleet and the Federation, since our own experience with them has been less than totally wonderful.'

Everyone around the table nodded silently, knowing that Kyra was being very diplomatic with that particular comment. StarFleet and the Federation hadn't done anything to oppress the Bajoran people after they had won their independence from the Cardassian Empire, but they certainly hadn't gone out of their way to extend any humanitarian relief or help rebuild their civilization while they were occupying the system in their own strategic interests because of the wormhole and DS9, as well as its proximity to the Cardassian Empire.

Sisko nodded. 'I'll do my best to run interference if that becomes necessary, though I sincerely doubt that it will. Once the delegates arrive, Admiral Korg and High Captain Sorn'Kek will insist upon being present to represent their own governments during all discussions and evaluations of the new technology. I'm sure that Admiral Karv'Tarek will end up coming here very quickly if there are any problems with Sorn'Kek handling things for the Romulans.'

Janeway and the others looked back and forth between Sisko and Kahmmhi, all of them appearing to be very nervous as they realized that their futures were being discussed so openly.

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'I'm sure that our own cooperation will depend on the ability of the Alliance to abide by their agreements with us as well.' She smiled sweetly.

Sisko broke out into raucous laughter, startling many of those at the nearby tables. 'Kahm, you never fail to amaze me, and you certainly never disappoint me. If I actually WANTED to become an admiral, I'd study your tactics very carefully so that I'd be more than prepared for all of the infighting and political backstabbing that goes along with the job.'

Krohn smiled very ferally. 'Then you might want to really pay attention and take lots of notes if you DON'T want to end up being forced to take the promotion and become an admiral when they get around to you, Sisko. Your record is exemplary, so they obviously have to promote SOMEONE who is capable, rather than just promoting all of the incapable officers so that they're not able to cause as much damage by their actions in the field.'

Sisko looked stunned, and Janeway laughed at his expression. Her laughter stopped when Kahmmhi added, 'And you might want to take a note from that comment yourself, Janeway. You're going to be the hero who survived against all odds, then overcame the obstacles that you faced and achieved technological and scientific accomplishments that the entire Federation hasn't been able to match, even with all of their own vast resources. Overcoming the Borg repeatedly, making first contact with dozens of new races and civilizations, and developing new technology that, while they knew it did exist and could work, they couldn't develop on their own. And yet, your crew, without even knowing that the technology actually existed, managed to develop the beginnings of that technology on your own and get it working.'

'But you helped us do a lot of the work on the technology, and you even had to help us work out the adjustments for the stealth systems.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'No, B'elana, we didn't do anything except help you along and help you solve some of the problems that you would inevitably encounter with the new technology more quickly than you would have done it on your own.'

Janeway looked at Kahmmhi curiously. 'Yes, but you knew that you'd signed a treaty with the Alliance stating that you wouldn't share certain technology with them. So why DID you help us develop that same technology using our own technological capabilities?'

'The explanation for that is simple. We knew that they would develop those technologies on their own in time, but knowing how dangerous they were, they were more restrained in their ongoing research. You had already discovered enough to allow you to develop everything on your own, but your situation was likely to cause you to push your research faster because of your desire to return to the Alpha quadrant and the constraints that were put on you by limited time, resources, and support. We didn't want you finding out the hard way about some of the serious dangers that you could encounter if you didn't have things worked out completely before you tried to enter hyper for the very first time.'

Paris nodded. 'Uh, yeah. We certainly never thought about the fact that the entire interior of the hyper stream was lined with antimatter. One chunk of that getting past our shields would have had some disastrous and very permanent effects.'

Janeway nodded in agreement, and everyone else around the table did the same. Janeway and her crew had seen enough of the problems that they'd had to overcome during the past few years to know that they would have spent a lot of time, energy, and possibly even lives, in order to solve all of them and return to the Alpha quadrant. And she knew that with the myriad maze that the hyper streams had, she'd have still been better off relying on warp travel to reach the Alpha quadrant rather than risking becoming hopelessly lost in hyper. It was only Kahmmhi's hyper maps that had allowed them to reach DS9 in the first place. There were a lot of other hyper points in the systems that they had traveled through on their way to reach DS9 once again. Taking any one of them could have resulted in them being unable to find their way back for a very long time.

'We are going to have to do a lot of exploration before we have a very large, accurate hyper map. That's why you made sure that our stealth was working. And even with that, we still have to worry about any civilizations that we run into knowing that SOMEONE is inside their system when they see what appears to be a huge wormhole open inside their system for no apparent reason. We can travel through hyperspace, but we still can't enter and exit hyper without making a huge splash.'

Sisko arched his eyebrows. 'Splash?'

'That's what they call it when a ship comes out of hyper and makes a big lightshow with the sudden huge release of neutrinos. It looks a lot like a wormhole opening, and can be detected from a very long distance.'

Sisko and the others nodded. They lived in the one system in the entire Federation where that type of lightshow was well known, studied, and documented. Everyone in the system was intimately familiar with the "splash" that something coming out of hyperspace would make. 'I assume that you've discovered ways to make sure that doesn't happen when your ships enter or leave hyper.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Believe me, it was necessary for our very survival from the very first. We had to be able to move around silently, without allowing the enemy to discover our presence. And we had to be able to move faster than them, handle more stressful maneuvers so that we could evade their ships, and be able to keep them from detecting our ships. In the early days of the Clan, the most important thing was to hide our entry and exit so that they didn't know that there was anyone in the system to even look for. We were able to limit our hyper entry signatures long before we ever developed working stealth systems.'

'That makes sense. If they know that someone is there, they will look for them and be on their guard. But if they think that they're alone in the system, they'll only have their normal guard and they won't be as watchful of other indicators of danger in the system. And since your ships were captured from them, most of them would appear to still be ships that were at least very similar to their own. They wouldn't really detect them or have any real reason to question their presence if they did detect them.'

Krohn chuckled. 'Yeah, we passed for their own ships a lot during the early days. And we generally kept our distance from them as well. If we stayed on the fringes of their systems or just went through near the normal traffic lanes between the hyper points, they thought that we were just small patrols or convoy escorts moving from one system to another most of the time. We didn't always raid and attack, even when we could have managed to take out a target quite easily. That kept us from showing our route of travel, so they didn't know how we were getting from one system to another. And the longer the time between our attacks, the more likely it was that they would believe that we had somehow managed to find another way to get from one system to the next.'

'Well, the Alliance representatives will be bringing one of the new ships that we captured, and they'll be using high warp speeds because they want to minimize the time between your arrival and when they know exactly what happened in the Delta quadrant, so you won't have to wait long before dealing with them. According to the message that I received, you should expect them here in about six weeks. Possibly less.'

Janeway looked at him. 'You couldn't possibly get a subspace message to Earth and back faster than that, so how are they going to have someone here to deal with us in that amount of time?'

'The message didn't have to get to Earth. The commanders in system are going to represent their governments until other representatives arrive. And the signal only had to get to the nearest starbase before the commander there ordered the planned response to any such signal that StarFleet and the Federation Council had set up after Kahmmhi left, declaring her intentions to wage war in the Delta quadrant against both the Dominion and the Borg.'

Janeway chuckled. 'I suppose that they got to know her well enough if they planned for some contingency such as this upon her return. But how could you know that she was going to return and not just go to the singularity and try to get back to her Clan without even bothering to check on how this system was doing?'

'They didn't. They just planned for this contingency.'

Kahmmhi looked at Sisko. 'Did they say anything about Janeway and her crew?'

'Only that they are to take some time to relax and enjoy R and R until someone with the proper authority can arrive and assess what StarFleet and the Alliance wish to do about the situation.'

Janeway nodded. 'I'll see if my crew wishes to avail themselves of the hospitality and amenities that your station has to offer. Even in system, I don't think that more than forty of my crew should be here at any one time.'

Worf nodded. 'This station can handle your entire crew without any problem, captain.'

Sisko nodded. 'We can even provide relief crew so that your entire crew can come over at one time, if you wish.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'That won't be necessary. Until we are convinced that everything is going as it should be, we will provide enough security troops on board her ship to allow her to transfer her entire crew from her ship to this station or one of our ships for as long as that is necessary or prudent. We don't have to worry about anyone boarding the ship without being seen, since the armor on it doesn't allow for transporters to work.'

Sisko smiled. 'Well, then, since you are making sure that their security is assured, I won't have to worry about anyone from StarFleet accusing me of exceeding my orders and taking similar measures on my own initiative.'

Kahmmhi nodded, then raised her hand and waited for one of the waitresses to arrive. When she did, Kahmmhi smiled and said sweetly, 'So, since we've been talking long enough for us to get hungry again, would anyone care to join us for dinner?'

Sisko broke out into laughter. 'I think that I could force myself to eat again. Though I'm not sure that I could handle the dessert if it's like the last one that Quark brought you. I may not have stuck around to eat it, but I do remember that he was bringing out death by chocolate khorb nut pies.'

Kahmmhi smiled, licking her lips. 'Oh, yes. And they were great.'

They sat and ate again, though most of them just watched the Clan members eat while they ate a very light meal with them. Nobody knew how much food a Clan member could put away exactly, but it was a lot, and their metabolisms really burned through the calories. Janeway had called up the full daily ration for a Clan warrior from the synthesizer one time so that the doctor could analyze it. His only comment after being told that it was one day's rations for a single person who wasn't doing combat or heavy physical activity was that the typical Clan member consumed roughly ten to twenty times the number of calories that a normal human did. And that the rations should last a normal person at least a week. Regardless of their physical activity level.

After dinner, Sisko led all of them to rooms on board the station so that they could rest without having to return to their ship. He knew that Kahmmhi could easily return to her ship in a matter of minutes at most, but Janeway and her crew members would require time for their shuttle to cross the system, since they lacked the capability to make their shuttle skip across the system by doing microjumps through hyperspace.

After all of their guests were settled in for the night, Sisko and his staff retired as well, scheduling a meeting for the first thing in the morning to go over everything that they had learned so that Sisko could send a much more detailed, updated report to StarFleet Command and the Federation Council. They could always get the message to their representatives while they were traveling to the system.

Kahmmhi and the others met Janeway at Quark's for breakfast. While they were eating, they saw Max's Raider platoon go through the place and enter the holodeck suites. Quark smiled, greeted them warmly, and made sure that they had no problems with the protocols for locking the holodeck to all entry other than authorized Clan personnel.

'You have your own holodeck here?' B'elana sounded impressed.

'Sort of. We traded Quark synthesizers of his own in exchange for holodeck time and several other things. We still have some time left on our contract, and he was having trouble renting out the largest holodeck all of the time anyway.'

'I didn't think that the Clan used holodeck technology that was similar to ours.'

'We don't. We do use holos a lot, but they're nothing like yours. You can put your hands through our holos.'

'Then what do you use the holodecks here for?'

Lyhssyha chuckled. 'The troops use it for combat training sims. That's where they practiced taking out the simulated Jem'Haddar and Founders before the battle. Though we also program in combat sims that are much more like our normal combat against the enemy forces that we normally encounter in the Consortium systems. It's not very realistic, though. Even at the strongest settings possible, the enemy troops aren't strong enough to actually pass as Consortium combat troops. But it does allow us to practice and use new tactics for fun.'

B'elana stared at them in shock. 'You're kidding me.'

Lyhssyha shook her head. 'Oh, no. Even Worf couldn't believe it the very first time that Krohn defeated the three best legendary Klingon warriors while they were set at the highest strength and speed settings that the holodeck possessed.'

'That must have been some fight. It would be very interesting to watch.'

Kahmmhi looked at Paris and shook her head. 'I think that you'd be very disappointed. It didn't last very long. A couple of seconds, and all three of them were dead and on the floor in pieces. Krohn used his kwyll.'

'Seconds?' B'elana looked stunned, unable to believe that what she had just heard could even be possible. They WERE talking about the three most powerful and renowned legendary Klingon warriors in recorded history. Yeah, Clan members were strong and fast, but... seconds? That was just unbelievable, even for Clan warriors. She could see it if they were just as strong as the original warriors had been, but Kahmmhi had said that they had made them as strong and as fast as the holodeck could make them. That was several times stronger than the strongest Klingon had ever been.

'So, what are we going to do for the next several weeks?' Paris sounded unsure.

'Rest and recreation. We actually have a chance to have real shore leave.'

'OK. But what about contacting our families or friends? Are they going to let us communicate and let everyone know that we're alive, that we managed to make it back from the Delta quadrant, or what?'

Janeway looked at the others, then shrugged. 'They haven't said anything about that yet. I'm sure that we could contact everyone, but StarFleet and the Federation Council might not appreciate that. They may want to keep news of our return restricted for security reasons, at least for the time being. For all I know, the entire Alliance might have a problem with us letting everyone know that we've returned, even if we didn't reveal anything about where we've been or what we've been doing.'

'We should talk to Captain Sisko and find out what he thinks.' Seven sounded very matter of fact.

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Give me an hour or so, and we'll find out what some of the representatives think, rather than putting Sisko in the middle of this problem. It wouldn't be fair to put him on the spot when there are others who can take the heat without even worrying about it.'

Janeway and the others knew that Kahmmhi was up to something, but nobody wanted to interfere. It would be nice to know that they could contact their families and loved ones, even if they were still going to be stuck in this system for a while.

Kahmmhi got up and left, her Shadows trailing behind her. Janeway and the others left to contact Chakotay and work out rotations for shore leave aboard DS9 for the rest of the crew.

Kahmmhi contacted Admiral Korg first. When he saw her, he smiled very broadly.

'Kahmmhi, it is very good to see you again. I didn't really expect to see you for a few more years. I thought that you'd be off hunting your enemies and destroying the Dominion. You said that you wanted to hunt Borg.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'We found the home planet of the Founders already. It no longer exists. And we did find the Borg, or at least some of them.' She tried to sound almost disappointed. 'We did everything that we could think of to get them to come out and play with us, but I guess that they just didn't want to assimilate us enough to make any serious attempts to do so.'

Korg laughed heartily. 'I'll just bet. What did you do to them?'

'I'll send you a file with the details. We don't know how well our final attack worked, though. We sent a bomb back on one of their ships. We know that they reached a place where there was enough mass close by for the bomb to trigger and detonate, and that it actually destroyed at least one of their transwarp conduits. But that's all that we know for sure.'

Korg looked impressed. 'That is much more than anyone from this quadrant has ever been able to do to them. I will look forward to reading about your encounters with them in more detail. So, what can I do for you?'

'I don't know how you worked things out among the members of the Alliance concerning disclosure of the new technologies that you received from the Clan, or anything like that, and I don't know what you've been told about what we brought back with us.'

'We know that your scout claw is in this system again. And we were informed that you brought back a lost Federation science vessel of the Voyager class. A small, but sturdy ship, to be sure. We didn't know that anyone had gone through the wormhole and been lost.'

'They were snatched from this quadrant by a very advanced race years ago, and had been lost and on their own in the Delta quadrant since that time. It would have taken them another sixty years or so to return here, but we found them because they had made some scientific discoveries. They had worked out the basic design for working bare minimum stealth, and they had discovered a way to open naturally occurring hyperspace portals in the systems that they were in. They also had developed their own gravitic engines. Crude, but they worked.'

Korg was no longer smiling, and was paying very close attention. 'This is very interesting. And very amazing news. THEY discovered these things on their own?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'The basics, yes. We helped them work out some of the details and refine it so that it would work properly and be safe enough for them to use on their return journey, and then brought them back here with us through hyperspace. Their ship currently lacks warp capabilities, but it is capable of travel using gravitic engines in both real space and in hyperspace.'

'We had not been informed of that.' Korg did not sound pleased, but he also did not sound either surprised or angry about that fact.

'I'm sure that they're going to inform you through proper channels, but Sisko just learned of this yesterday, and he had to contact his superiors. It does take time for them to get the entire message and respond.'

Korg nodded. 'Yes. Communications are still limited in their speed and efficiency, since nothing that you gave us has done anything to enhance our communications abilities.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Yes. About that. Since you've proven that your technology is now capable of allowing you to travel in hyperspace, we can show you how to set up a comsat network that uses hyperspace to send messages between linked systems much more rapidly than your current subspace systems are capable of doing.'

Korg smiled. Kahmmhi was offering something, so she wanted something from him in return. This was preferable to dealing with politicians who didn't come right out and tell you what they wanted, or what they wanted to offer in return.

'That would be most helpful, and it would make our alliance stronger and more capable of coordinating activities in the event of some disaster or threat. Faster communications would allow us to plan out offensives or rescue missions, and even get the relief forces there much more quickly. What could we do for you in return?'

'Well, they haven't said anything yet, and it could take weeks for anyone to arrive and determine whether or not to even let the rest of the Federation know that the Voyager is no longer lost, and that at least some of its crew is still alive. If they were to contact their families, then there could be no question of them being kept hidden in the interests of security, either for the Federation or your Alliance.'

'Yes. That is very true.' Korg also knew that once everyone in the Federation and the Alliance knew that the crew of the Voyager had returned after being lost for years in the Delta quadrant, not only would they be heroes, but everything that they had done there would become part of the official public record. Some parts might still remain classified in the interests of security, but there would be no chance for anyone to do anything behind anyone else's back if everything was under intense public scrutiny.

Korg took in a deep breath, then let it out. 'I concur. They should contact their families and their friends so that everyone knows that they're still alive. That will remove all temptation from any remaining factions that might try to undermine the Alliance.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'I'll contact Sorn'Kek and see what he says. Thank you for helping out in this matter, Korg.'

Korg chuckled. 'Sisko won't be bothered by your actions, but you may make some enemies among those in StarFleet or the Federation Council who are less than thrilled with the existence of the current Alliance and the way that things are now being handled. There are still those in all three of our governments who don't trust this new alliance, and who are still wanting to undermine it for their own purposes.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Then you should hunt them down and allow them to experience Clan justice. We give them a choice when they undermine the safety of their Clan. Die, or live on their own with no hope of ever being given any assistance by any Clan.'

Korg nodded. That precept was acceptable to both the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Empire. And while they were still in an alliance with the Federation, there was no move currently under way to combine all three of their governments and civilizations into one giant conglomerate with common laws and a common government. That would probably come about long in the future if their alliance lasted the test of time, but until then, they would continue to govern their own people under their own laws.

Kahmmhi cut her connection, and immediately contacted Sorn'Kek.

'Ah. I thought that I would be hearing from you before very long. We heard that your ships were back already.'

'We didn't come alone.'

'We also know that.'

'I just finished talking to Korg about a matter of importance, and was wanting to know your opinion or stance on the matter.'

'This has something to do with the ship that you brought back with you.'

'Yes. While half of the crew was originally part of that ship's crew and members of the Federation, the other half is either former Maquis or people that they picked up and added to the crew while they were stranded in the Delta quadrant all of those years.'

'And what is the problem? The Federation intends to try the Maquis for their crimes?'

'I don't know, but I seriously doubt that. I'm pretty sure that I've already got that under control. Diplomacy has its uses.'

Sorn'Kek laughed. 'Yes, somehow that doesn't surprise me at all when you are involved, Tahr Kahhni. So, what can the Romulan Empire do for you?'

'Well, we were discussing the relative merits of having the Voyager's crew contact their family and friends before the Federation and StarFleet representatives arrived to make an official determination as to what to do with them. Nothing specific or relating to what they had done or discovered, but enough so that it was common knowledge that they were still alive, and that they weren't dead or still in the Delta quadrant.'

Sorn'Kek nodded, realizing immediately that it would solve a lot of "security" issues simply because nobody would be able to try to use them to keep everyone else from finding out about anything related to the ship and the technology that they had discovered during their time in the Delta quadrant. They had to have found SOMETHING useful during their time interacting with numerous alien civilizations.

'I agree. Officially, if necessary.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'I doubt that it will be necessary to make it official, but I do appreciate the offer.'

'Let us just hope that everyone is above board and open with their dealings on this matter. There are still those who blame our alliance for some major shifts in power among all three of our governments.'

'As I told Korg, in the Clan, we either kill them if they are a threat and they have caused Clan members to be killed, or we give them the opportunity to leave the Clan and live on their own without any hope of ever receiving Clan protection again if they think that the Clan is so bad that they refuse to contribute to the common goals or abide by the accepted laws and rules.'

'I'll pass that suggestion on to my government. We of the Romulan Empire are much more likely than the Federation to take that particular option seriously enough to implement it. As are the Klingons. We understand the necessity of following certain rules for the benefit of the society as a whole, even if it does sometimes impinge on the rights or freedoms of a few individuals who choose to dissent against what is best for the vast majority, despite the consequences of that dissent.'

Kahmmhi nodded, and they both closed the link. She turned to her Shadows and smiled. 'Let's go tell Janeway that she should have her people contact all of the family members and friends that they can think of and let them know that they are still alive. At least that will keep anyone from trying to pull any tricks regarding releasing any news of the return of Voyager and her crew.'

Janeway stared at Kahmmhi. 'You actually WANT us to contact our families and tell them about what we've done? Without permission from StarFleet or anyone in the Federation Council?'

'Technically, this system isn't under the jurisdiction of the Federation Council. It is occupied by Alliance forces in the interest of the security of the entire Alpha quadrant. While I haven't contacted the leader of the Federation forces in this system, I have already talked to the representatives of both the Romulan and Klingon governments who command their forces in this system, and they both agree with me that it is in the best interests of the Alliance as a whole that you be allowed to do this.' Kahmmhi smiled. 'Though I would be happy to contact Admiral Yamato personally if that would put you more at ease.'

Janeway nodded, so Kahmmhi had them open a link with Admiral Yamato.

'Kahmmhi. It's good to see you again. We didn't expect to see you back in this system so soon. Ah, you have Captain Janeway with you. Congratulations on your survival and your safe return, captain. What can I do for you, Kahmmhi?'

'I was wanting to find out your opinion concerning allowing Captain Janeway and the members of her crew to contact their friends and family members and inform them that they are still alive, and that they have returned from their long sojourn in the Delta quadrant.'

'I think that is an excellent idea. I would caution them about revealing anything that might be something of a security breach, but general descriptions of their activities and what they saw could only raise interest in their return. They haven't encountered any resistance or had anyone trying to block their ability to contact their families, have they?' Yamato appeared to be concerned, and the idea that they were possibly being denied the ability to contact their families clearly irritated her.

'Not so far. They've been so busy that I don't think they've really had time to think about letting anyone else know that they were still alive.'

'Then, definitely, by all means, have them contact their families. By standing StarFleet regulations, anyone who has been stranded, lost, or otherwise separated from the Federation and presumed to have been killed is to be allowed to inform their families of their survival at the first opportunity. Communications are working perfectly, so they should avail themselves of the opportunity to at least send messages to their families to let them know that they're alive and well.'

Janeway nodded. 'Thank you, admiral. But half of my crew isn't officially affiliated with StarFleet.'

'That doesn't matter. They're still returning from being stranded in the Delta quadrant, and they have all of the rights of any citizen or other rescued individual, refugee or otherwise, under Federation law. If they have anyone that they can contact, allow them to try to do so, and if they can't contact them, we'll do everything in our power to make sure that they're informed as soon as it's possible to do so.'

'Thank you very much, admiral.'

'Relax, captain. There's no need to be so formal. Believe me, you've accrued a lot of leave time, in addition to any time that is due you because of surviving such an ordeal. I'd be very interested in hearing your story in a much more informal setting than we're going to have when we meet with whatever representatives are being sent to this system.'

'I would be honored to do so, admiral.'

'And don't worry. Not only will Kahmmhi be there to make sure that nobody does anything to screw you over for political reasons, but Korg, Sorn'Kek, and I will also be there. We aren't going to have anyone jeopardizing the Alliance for their own personal or political gains.'

'Thank you, admiral.'

Yamato sighed. 'I won't keep you. Though I will be expecting an invitation to dinner soon, Kahmmhi. It would be nice to catch up and see what you've been up to since we last spoke.'

'No problem, Admiral. I'll invite Korg and Sorn'Kek as well, and we'll make a party of it.'

The admiral laughed. 'Go contact your family, captain. And I hope that you all receive some good news when you finally hear from them.'

The comm screen went blank, and Janeway looked at Kahmmhi in disbelief. 'I don't know how you do it or what exactly it is that you do, but you certainly seem to be able to get things done.'

'We're dealing with warriors, not politicians. Wait until the politicians get here. Then everything goes to hell in a handbasket.'

Kahmmhi was still chuckling as she walked off, leaving Janeway to find her crew and inform them that they could all call their families and let them know that they were still alive.

Sisko was on duty when his comm officer called him. 'Sir, I'm detecting a number of transmissions coming from inside the system, but they're not coming from the station or any of the picket ships in the system.'

'Have you been able to determine what type of transmissions they are?'

'Yes, sir. They appear to be standard subspace communications. But they're coming from a point in the system that doesn't show any ship.'

'Log the transmissions and ignore them, ensign.'

'Sir?'

'There are two possible sources for the transmissions. One of the Clan ships, or Voyager. Since the messages appear to be standard StarFleet type subspace communications, I would have to assume that Captain Janeway has allowed her crew to inform their loved ones that they've finally managed to return to Federation space.'

The comm officer nodded, understanding what that meant. 'Yes, sir. Sorry to have bothered you, sir.'

'That's quite alright, ensign. That's part of your job. To bring any unknown transmissions to my attention. I didn't know that they'd be making any calls today or I would have informed you so that you wouldn't have been caught off guard by unknown transmissions.' Sisko chuckled. 'Knowing Kahmmhi, she's already cleared them with the leaders of the Alliance forces inside the system, so there's no problem to worry about.'

The ensign nodded and returned to his duties. Worf came over and smiled at Sisko. 'Kahmmhi has been busy.'

'Yes, she has. But I would have authorized their communications myself if she had asked, and she knows it. She's just making sure that we're not caught between the Alliance and the Clan if anything goes wrong with the negotiations regarding the newly acquired technologies.'

Worf raised an eyebrow, looking surprised. 'You are expecting trouble, captain?'

'No. But if there is, I know whose side I'm coming down on. We're here in the Bajoran system as guests of the Bajoran government, and Kahmmhi has already promised to give them equivalent technology and a fleet of their own, though the ships that she promised to give them are relatively small craft, so that won't severely strain their manpower requirements.'

Worf nodded, remembering that particular conversation very clearly. 'It would allow them to improve the living conditions for all Bajorans, as well as giving them their own security forces within the system. Even if we were to leave and the Cardassians were to attack and try to take control of the system, they would have the forces to defeat them.' They both knew that the HATs that Kahmmhi was talking about, even if they weren't up to Clan standards, would still be capable of destroying any ship that didn't have the new armor and technological upgrades that the Clan had given to the Federation and their allies. And since they had stealth, nothing else in the Alpha quadrant would be capable of detecting them.

'So, what do you think Kahmmhi is up to this time?'

Worf shook his head. 'I have given up trying to figure out what her motives are, sir. As for what her intentions are, I have even less of an idea about that than I do about her motives.'

Sisko chuckled softly. 'Yeah, Worf, I know the feeling. Believe me, I know the feeling.' Sisko still couldn't help wondering what Kahmmhi really was up to this time, and what her goal was. He had no doubt that whatever her objective, it would benefit the Clan, and in the end, it would probably benefit Janeway and her people as well as the rest of the Alliance. He couldn't help thinking that while it would be beneficial in the long run, it might not make the politicians who had to deal with Kahmmhi very happy in the short term. Not that Kahmmhi would really care about that one way or the other. The Clan believed that everything was secondary to the survival of the Clan, and their idea of long and short term solutions was vastly different from that of any civilization in the Alpha quadrant.

Janeway signed off of her conference with Chakotay and Tuvok. Every member of her crew had been allowed to make several calls to parents, relatives, or friends and inform them of their presence in Federation space once again. Most had gone out as messages, since very few of them had relatives or friends who were located close enough for them to actually speak with each other.

She sighed, then looked over at Kahmmhi. 'OK. We've contacted our relatives and friends, and everyone knows that we're still alive, and that we've returned from the Delta quadrant. What now?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Now, we wait.'

'Wait? For what?'

'We wait to see who has problems with everyone knowing about your safe return. Anyone who objects to the public knowing all about your return is someone that we have to watch.' She wasn't about to mention the media circus that was likely to occur as reporters learned of this new development. She'd learned enough about the entire Federation and their culture to know that they still had a very active media, and that the media was very good at informing the public about all kinds of occurrences throughout the Federation. If they were anything like the Llyriana media that her mother had described to Kahmmhi as a little girl, this place was about to become either very crowded or very well scrutinized by everyone in the Federation and the Alliance.

Janeway stared at Kahmmhi, looking totally confused. 'What? Why in the world would you say that? Perhaps their only concern is that security issues could be compromised by the unregulated release of information.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'That is nothing more than an excuse to try to control information and establish a power base. Could your average citizen build a gravitic engine, even if you gave them all of the information and details about its construction and operation?'

'Well, no, but that doesn't mean that our enemies couldn't if they also had access to that information.'

'That's true. But just telling them that you have the ability to travel by using gravitic engines doesn't give them any details or any of the information that they'd need to do that, does it?'

'No, it doesn't.'

'And since it is public knowledge throughout the Federation and the entire Alliance, not to mention several other civilizations at the very least, that the Clan already possesses the ability to use gravitic engines and travel through hyperspace, what legitimate reason is there for anyone to keep the rest of the people in the Federation from finding out that someone in the Federation has already figured out how to build a gravitic engine?'

Janeway looked stumped. 'Uh, none, I guess.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Exactly.'

'You sound like you don't trust the Federation.'

'Actually, I trust the Federation. I just don't trust some of the individuals that they entrust with power. We have a long history of distrust of politicians in general, and none of my grandfather's warnings were ever proven to be unfounded during our previous visit to this system. Admiral Stevens and Commodore Richards come to mind without too much effort. Both of them had their own agendas, and both abused their power and authority in an attempt to build their own power bases and acquire power for their own personal gain. They were not even worried about the survival of the Federation, your civilization, or your species, so long as they received personal gain.' She smiled grimly. 'You really should learn to cull those who threaten the survival of your entire species. Not only are they a threat to your survival, but they also serve as a very bad example to others, showing them that they can also try to emulate this behavior without suffering any real punishment. They also dilute your gene pool with defective genes. If you allow too much of that, then you won't have the tools that are necessary for your continued survival.'

'That sounds a lot like the arguments that led to the Eugenics Wars in our past. Those who were "supermen", and who had been genetically enhanced, believed that they had the right to rule over everyone else simply because they had better genes.'

'Really? That sounds strange. Why would they want to destroy the genetic stock that they came from? That doesn't make any sense at all. If their genes could have been enhanced, then it only stands to reason that the genes of others could also be enhanced.'

'Yes, well, the Federation outlawed that technology and banned anyone from being genetically enhanced like that because the Eugenics Wars almost destroyed our entire civilization.'

Kahmmhi and her Shadows nodded. At least that much made sense. As far as she was concerned, the ones whose genes had been enhanced must have been either mentally or emotionally unstable. But since there weren't any more of them around, that wasn't her problem to deal with. The humans must have solved that problem on their own.

'So, how long do you think it will take for us to find out if you're right about there being some dissension inside the Federation's government over how best to utilize the new technology?'

'If we don't hear anything about it by the time their representatives arrive, they want to keep the attention level down to avoid the appearance of trying to keep the technology and its benefits from the people and the general population. If we hear about it afterwards, it's more likely to be some internal power struggles over how they should be putting it to use and how they can apply it for other uses.'

Janeway looked confused. 'What other uses are there for gravitic drives and hyperspace?'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'I don't know what your people are capable of doing with their technology. Let me think. What other applications are there for the gravitics besides engines for propulsion? We use gravitics to power our railguns. Then there is the ability to control gravity so that you can travel at even greater speeds because your inertial compensators work better and absorb all of the stresses that are normally associated with inertia and high speed course changes, or sudden changes in direction. There is the possibility of at least limited control over gravity so that you can levitate objects and keep them suspended. There is the matter of being able to harvest literally tons of antimatter from hyperspace and use it to create vast amounts of energy. Your people should be capable of doing all of those things, at least to a limited degree.'

Janeway nodded, wondering how in the hell you'd actually create some kind of gravitic field that kept something suspended so that it was technically floating and the gravity around it had been negated. When she asked how that would work, and what applications it had, Kahmmhi laughed. 'Our skates use repulsor fields and suspensor fields to allow them to work. They either float right above the level of the deck itself, or they are suspended from the ceiling or wall so that they maintain a relative position while still retaining the ability to move along the surface without any real friction or actual contact with that surface.'

That explained how their skates worked. At least well enough for Janeway to picture how it worked, even if she didn't know all of the details concerning how it was actually achieved.

'And if you need to use skates, but you can't afford to have any noise, there is a way to build them so that instead of using a chemical explosion to propel the projectiles, you use a magnetic field that pulses them out of the skate similar to how our railguns propel them. It's a very rapid burst that has limited range, but it's totally silent other than the sound of the flechettes going through whatever they hit.' Kahmmhi smiled. 'And the screams of the wounded who weren't lucky enough to die instantly in the blast, of course.'

Janeway nodded. 'Of course.' By now, she was at least somewhat immune to the dark humor that most Clan warriors seemed to possess. During her first year of traveling with the Clan, a comment like that might have really bothered her, but now she actually expected to hear something like that whenever they were discussing the relative merits or technical capabilities of any Clan weapons system.

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'So, now we just wait and see what happens. I'm sure that things are going to get pretty interesting around here for a while, no matter which way things go.'

Janeway couldn't help but think that Kahmmhi could always be relied upon to understate things on a highly monumental scale.

There weren't any formal complaints registered about the messages that had been sent by the crew of Voyager, but Sisko did inform Kahmmhi that the news was very surprising and unexpected, and that it had generated a lot of interest among the general public throughout the entire Federation. Voyager had been completely out of contact and stranded on their own in the Delta quadrant for over a decade, and they had acquired a lot of data on cultures that were totally unknown to anyone in the Alpha quadrant. And because of all of the publicity and public interest in Voyager and what they had accomplished during their time in the Delta quadrant, the Federation was sending out some representatives from the press to cover as much of the story as possible.

'Yes, we have reporters, or at least historians who record what happens and make sure that our people find out about what our Clan is doing, as well as what we are able to learn of the activities of other Clans. Not only is this important for our people to know, but it's important for our children to learn their history and know not only where they came from, but how they are able to live their lives.'

'Reporters don't exactly do the same thing in our society. They kind of find ways to interest people in the story that they're trying to sell them on, and then generate enough of the story to show what it is that they want others to see.'

Kahmmhi had looked about as confused as her Shadows. 'What does that mean?'

'They don't necessarily report all of the facts. And they do tend to try to find out things by investigating on their own. Sometimes they don't respect the privacy of others, and sometimes they try to film things without the knowledge or consent of the person that they're filming.'

Kahmmhi nodded, then turned to her Shadows. 'Once we know who the reporters are, don't kill them if they violate Clan security. And remember, they break easily.'

'Yes, Kahmmhi. We'll make sure that we don't damage them too badly if they break our rules. What should we do if they sneak aboard one of our shuttles or do something just as stupid?'

Kahmmhi smiled, and Sisko winced. 'Turn the gravity up to five Gs and start asking them questions until you're certain that we have all of the information that we need. Then turn it back down and put them in a stasis tube until we determine what to do with them. Once they're in stasis, we won't have to worry about operating at low gravity to keep from injuring them.'

Jehryl smiled, seeming very pleased with that answer. 'Yes, Kahmmhi. I'll pass your instructions along to all of the platoon leaders in the ready talon, just in case.'

Sisko didn't even bother asking if Kahmmhi was serious or if she was just teasing him. He did, however, make a note to warn all of the reporters who showed up on DS9 about the possible consequences should they violate Clan security. Once they boarded a Clan ship, Federation law and the rules that governed the Alliance no longer applied. They were under Clan law. And while the Clan had very few laws compared to any of the societies in the Alpha quadrant, they were very strict in their enforcement and punishment of those who broke those laws.

Kahmmhi was feeling very relaxed right now. She was having dinner at Quark's, and it was a small, private dinner with some old friends. Admiral Yamato, Admiral Korg, and High Captain Sorn'Kek were her guests. Besides them, there were her four Shadows, her brother Max, and Virginia present.

'There are going to be more people here this time than there were before. Not only do they know that you have vastly superior technology that they would dearly love to acquire, but now there isn't any real threat of any enemy invasion or fighting going on inside the system. The picket force here may be relatively small, but it is vastly more powerful than the entire fleets that we had here during the war with the Dominion. Especially after all of the modifications and upgrades that have been made to the captured ships.'

Korg nodded, agreeing with Yamato completely. 'She's right. My government is sending an ambassador and a science expert. And, of course, I will attend the meetings.'

Sorn'Kek chuckled. 'I won't be attending the meetings. Romulus is sending an ambassador and a scientist, and Admiral Karv'Tarek will be accompanying the Federation delegation as our military liaison with them.'

Max nodded, thinking that it wasn't sounding too bad so far. Yamato sighed, looking slightly embarrassed. 'Not being an empire, we tend to be stuck with a lot more bureaucracy. They shaved down the size of the contingent that they're sending, but there are still going to be two members of the Federation Council, two ambassadors, a rear admiral from Federation Security, and three science experts.'

'OK.'

Yamato cleared her throat softly. 'And a member of the Federation Press Office is bringing out three very well known reporters and their cameramen. So that makes seven more who will be present for at least most of the proceedings. I'm only a line officer, so I'm not sure what they have worked out as far as how open most of the proceedings are going to be, at least as far as the public and the press are concerned. All that I do know is that all three Alliance members are going to be represented properly.'

Korg scowled. 'With this many people coming here, it won't be a proper meeting to determine what to do. It will be a circus, where nobody knows what is going on and nobody can agree upon who is in charge. They won't even have any idea what they're actually supposed to be doing.'

Sorn'Kek laughed. 'You may be right, but I think that with the prize that they're looking at, they'll be able to at least figure out how to get the technology that they want, even if they can't agree upon how best to put it to use at the time.'

Yamato just shook her head sadly. 'I hope that our leaders can do better than that, but there is the very distinct possibility that at least some of them are not up to the task that they are being given. I do, however, think that they will eventually figure out what needs to be done, and then do it. We must improve our technology and our fleets if we are to remain prepared for whatever we might find outside of our explored space. We now know that both the Gamma and Delta quadrants are very dangerous, and that both are filled with a large number of well armed and highly aggressive species.' She sighed. 'Cooperation and preparation are going to be critical for our mutual continued survival in the face of these potential threats.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'When we were here before, our scouts found a number of different civilizations during their explorations through hyper. Some of them were engaged in ongoing warfare on a scale much vaster than anything that you have seen here. Their technological capabilities varied greatly, but none of them were capable of hyper travel. They did, however, use a number of different methods of propulsion, and some of their systems were comparable to warp travel. Right now, so far as we know, you have the advantage of having discovered gravitics and being able to use it. That will allow you to travel through hyper along the existing hyper streams. Eventually, if you devote the time and resources to researching hyper, you will probably discover how to do many of the things that we are already capable of doing with hyper travel. But if you don't work on developing your technology and continually striving to improve it, you may find yourself facing another invasion force whose technology rivals or even outstrips your own. The probability that we, or someone like us, will be present to help you survive again, is extremely low.'

Yamato and the others nodded.

Max sighed. 'If you're pushed to the limits, you'd better remember one thing. Survival may require you to fight much more aggressively than you have in the past. In a real war, those who don't fight are often killed by those who are willing to do whatever is necessary to make sure that they do survive.'

Korg and Sorn'Kek nodded. Both of their races had already begun training their warriors to become even more aggressive in combat, and they were learning how to control that aggression so that their troops didn't become mindless berserkers. The Clan had taught them that control, precision, and technique were just as important as strength, endurance, and the willingness to kill your enemy without hesitation.

Admiral Yamato nodded. She and many other StarFleet officers were realizing that while peace was a noble and great objective in the end, it could sometimes only be obtained by killing those who would eradicate your race without ever giving you the possibility of peaceful coexistence. The Dominion and the Borg came to mind as two races that would have enslaved and eventually eradicated everything in the Alpha quadrant that tried to stand against them. Only now, the Federation and the Alliance had a chance of surviving even in the face of those threats.

They concentrated on eating, drinking, and catching up on old times, as well as on what had happened since the last time that they had seen each other. Each of them was now convinced that the Alliance had a chance to grow and flourish, and that all of them were committed to the Alliance simply because it was the only way to ensure their own race's survival.

Admiral Karv'Tarek looked at the gathering around him, wondering how in the hell they thought that they were going to accomplish anything when they were sending so many diplomats and bureaucrats and so few actual leaders or scientific advisors. It was a wonder that the Federation had managed to keep from suffocating themselves under a blanket of bureaucracy.

Karv'Tarek sighed, then tried to blend into the background so that the reporters wouldn't continue to harass him with their inane questions. Angela Richards was in charge of advising them and giving them official reports because she had been sent by the Federation Press Office as their official liaison. Fortunately, the Federation had narrowed down the reporters to a manageable handful. Marlena Hargrave and her cameraman, Benny Martinez, were known throughout the Federation. They could do a very good job at times. Karv'Tarek had actually seen some of their stories that were very well done. Of course, there were the other stories that were clearly biased, and some of those stuck out in his mind simply because the bias was so obvious and so clearly wrong. Yet they were still known and revered throughout the entire Federation.

Roy Buckingham was accompanied by his cameraperson, a small female with light brown hair, freckles, and a slender build. Karv'Tarek had to think for a moment before he remembered that her name was Sara Leedom. She was competent, and did her job well, but all he could remember about her was that she was cute for a human female who was so small and weak. Though he had to admit that she was very wiry and strong for her size, especially for a human female. Buckingham was competent, but he totally lacked imagination. That was, perhaps, a good thing in this particular case. Imagination and creativity could lead to some very tricky situations when you were dealing with the Clan.

Then there was the last pair. August Scott Fitzsimmons and his cameraman, Angus McAfee. Karv'Tarek wasn't really sure where either of them were from, but neither of them impressed him favorably. Fitzsimmons was clearly some kind of social creature, relying on his connections and "friends in high places" to keep him supplied with all of the news and stories that he needed for his career. On Romulus, he would have been a backstabber, which wasn't anywhere near as bad a thing there as it was considered to be in the Federation. The only problem was that Fitzsimmons lacked the courage to actually do his own stabbing, so he would have been culled in Romulan society.

Which left him reviewing the players in this circus, the current focus of all of the reporters and their cameras. Councillors McNamara and Andersson had come to directly represent the Federation Council. Ambassadors Williams and Sanchez were here to do the actual work of running the investigation and inquiries. Then there was the spook from Federation Security, Rear Admiral Thompson. She was remarkably qualified and capable for such a position, which only caused him to wonder how she had become associated with that organization in the first place. And how she had managed to rise to such a rank when she was clearly qualified for her job. Most of the popinjays that he had seen in Federation Security were really paranoid, and they were concerned and threatened whenever they encountered anyone who had true talent and capabilities. It made them feel even more insecure than they normally did.

Then there were the three experts who were along to study the science and advise everyone what they thought of the discoveries that had been made and their potential applications. Karv'Tarek thought that they'd be better off just listening to Kahmmhi, the Clan experts, and the engineers and experts on Voyager who had actually discovered the technology and modified it so that it worked in the first place. Dr. Michaelson was older, and he seemed to lack any personality when he wasn't talking about his work. When he was talking about his work, he wasn't totally boring, but he was intense and highly focused on the task at hand, often to the detriment of his social and communications skills. Dr. Nakamura was still young, extremely bright, and seemed to know her field very well. She was also capable of communicating and holding conversations with people while talking about things other than her work. Dr. Koryll, the Andorean, was a little high strung for this type of work, but that was merely the opinion of Karv'Tarek himself. While he often became very heated and passionate when he was discussing things that related to his field of expertise, he was still very competent in his field of expertise, and wasn't wrong very often when he chose to argue a point.

Compared to the fifteen people from the Federation, the combined delegations from both the Romulan and Klingon empires seemed small. Karv'Tarek, Ambassador Mek'Vihm, and Tahl'mahn, a Romulan scientist for the Romulan Empire. Korg, Ambassador Krang, and K'ehlynn, a Klingon scientist for the Klingon Empire.

They were already looking at twenty one people, and seven of them weren't even necessary for the actual goal of the meetings. Then there would be Kahmmhi, a few Clan experts present to explain things, and however many people from the crew of Voyager, the ship that had actually made the discoveries and then refined them into a very functional and operative system with the help of the Clan. There could be between thirty and forty people at these meetings, not counting Kahmmhi's Shadows. In Karv'Tarek's experience, meetings with that many people present generally managed to accomplish little to nothing. They were notorious for wasting time, energy, and resources. And with so many people there to hear everything, keeping anything a secret was a pipe dream.

He watched for a while as the others gave interviews to the reporters, answering their questions without really saying anything. Of course, they really didn't know any details yet, even if there were details that could have been given to the reporters. That was the whole point of sending out all of these people and experts in the first place. They needed to find out exactly what had been discovered, how it could be used by the Alliance, and how much it was going to require them to expend in terms of time, energy, and resources before it had actual benefits for their fleets or their societies. The only good thing about this entire trip was that they actually knew that the discoveries would have some benefits for the Alliance and the individual societies. They just weren't sure what those benefits would be or how much they would change their societies yet.

The meeting ended, and Karv'Tarek quickly went to his quarters before any of the reporters remembered that they had a Romulan on board and wanted additional input from him "to represent the Romulan viewpoint". None of them seemed to know or care what that actually meant, but it made a "great sound byte", whatever that was. Now, if he could just manage to survive the rest of the trip without killing one of the reporters, he'd be happy with managing that monumental achievement.

Kahmmhi and Virginia were talking softly in Llyriana when Sisko and some of his staff entered the room. They were accompanied by Admiral Yamato, Korg, and Sorn'Kek.

Sisko smiled. 'We wanted to go over the background with you before the delegates arrived, Kahm. Tell you what we've managed to accomplish in the years that you've been gone, and how much we've come to work together to strengthen our alliance.'

Kahmmhi nodded, waiting patiently as they got some drinks from the synthesizer in the corner and sat down. She had already noticed that every place that she'd been, Clan synthesizers were now in use rather than the replicators that had been standard before the Clan's arrival. There were other small changes that she had noticed. Small, but they were also significant, since they showed that the culture was rapidly accepting and using the more advanced technology that they had acquired.

Surprisingly, Sisko started going over the general details himself, rather than Admiral Yamato. 'As you've already noticed, some things have changed since you left. Synthesizers aren't fully replacing replicators throughout the quadrant yet, but they are being incorporated into our culture, and they are already in widespread use. Right now they're limited in number simply because of the manufacturing requirements, but we're working on replacing all of our old replicators with synthesizers as they wear out or are replaced. Those who can afford a synthesizer are able to purchase one, though they're still rather expensive for most people to own.'

Kahmmhi nodded. Even in a society such as the Federation, where they didn't technically use money, they did still use a system of being paid in credits, and each individual only had so many, depending on his job, his rank, and his ability to generate things that people would trade credits for. It wasn't quite a barter society, but it was one that didn't use actual money. They just transferred credits between accounts unless you actually had gold, latinum, or other precious objects for trade. Then the value of the object varied, depending on what you had to trade and what it was worth to someone else. Of course, when dealing with traders, the price varied by how skilled you were at making a deal with them as well.

Kyra smiled. 'They pushed the deadlines right up until the last day, but they did get all of the prisoners out of all of the detention camps by the deadline that you set. Now all ten of them are in use by the population of Bajor, and we have a large number of people not only living there, but producing more food than they can use for their own needs. We're finally feeding our entire planet well enough that nobody goes hungry or is really too poor to meet the basic requirements for survival.'

'I'm glad to hear that, Kyra. What about the people on the rest of the planet? Are they able to live in proper housing and use synthesizers as well?'

Kyra shook her head sadly. 'Not yet. We've been trying to duplicate your building methods, but I think that they're too far beyond our current technology for us to do it. I know that we can't duplicate some of your building materials with the resources that we currently have available. And there have also been some problems with figuring out how we can manufacture enough synthesizers for everyone on the planet to have one in their home. We simply lack the resources and energy to produce enough of them.'

Kahmmhi looked at Virginia. 'Do we have the materials to go ahead and build some more complexes for them to use?'

Virginia nodded. 'Oh, yes. We can mine a lot of asteroids or gather matter from one of the other rocks in this system, and we've got plenty of AM stored up after just going around the Delta quadrant without really attacking anything in more than ten years. Hell, I can barely remember more than a dozen skirmishes in the entire time that we were gone, so we really didn't go through any antimatter to speak of.'

Kahmmhi looked over at Kyra. 'Would your leaders be offended if we offered to build more of the complexes that we built before? We can put them wherever you would like, and we could even construct them where you have existing structures if you don't mind us razing the place quickly and then rebuilding. You'd have time to move out anything that you wanted to keep, but we'd need to know if there were any special items that couldn't be moved or that had to be saved so that we didn't accidentally destroy something that was important to your culture.'

Kyra looked stunned. 'Thank you for your generosity. I can't speak for them, but I can certainly ask our leaders about it, and I'm certain that they would not be offended by your offer. How many of these complexes are we talking about?'

Kahmmhi and Virginia talked quickly and quietly for several minutes, going over several different things on one of their comps. Finally, Kahmmhi nodded and looked up at Kyra again. 'As long as we're not talking about doing anything larger than about five times the size of the complexes that we built the last time that we were here, we're fairly certain that we could build about twenty of them for you in the next few years. If we didn't have time to complete them before we had to leave this system, we could build the parts that you can't duplicate on your own, and allow your people to complete the construction themselves.'

Kyra gasped. 'Five times the size of the compounds that you built before? TWENTY of them? That could allow us to completely replace most of the twenty largest cities on Bajor.'

Kahmmhi simply nodded. Bajor wasn't heavily populated for a planet of its size. 'Yes. It would be enough to house a significant portion of your population, or at least those who live in the major cities. And with the ability to harvest AM by using the ships that we're already planning to give your planet to form their own space fleet, you would be able to supply those cities with all of the necessary AM that they would require for power and still continue constructing individual dwellings and small towns for those who lived in more sparsely populated areas.'

Yamato looked at Kahmmhi curiously. 'Ships?'

'Yes. Since the Federation and their allies are going to be given some help in developing the new technology that Voyager discovered and brought back to the Alpha quadrant, we've decided that the Bajorans should have at least some ships of their own to provide for their own security inside this system. While they aren't large enough on either their population base or their industrial base to support a large fleet, they could support a small fleet of small craft that would act as their own security forces in this system's space. Customs ships, and such.'

Yamato nodded, realizing now what Kahmmhi was talking about. 'That seems to be a very sound and logical decision. But if you build their ships, won't they have to worry about doing any maintenance and repairs?'

'Yes, they will. We're going to build them to the specifications that they can maintain with the technology that you will be capable of maintaining on your own. We'll build them so that they use only the materials that you can manufacture on your own with the synthesizers that you currently have, and we'll use whatever specifications currently exist for the gravitic engines and other systems for Voyager and the ships that you already have that have been upgraded. They'll be larger and more powerful than the shuttlecraft that Voyager currently has, but still smaller and less powerful than any of the actual fleet ships that you've upgraded since we left.'

'But they will still be hyper capable and they'll have gravitic drives, as well as the best inertial compensators that you can build with our technological limitations?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Of course. They wouldn't be of much use to the Bajorans for use in system security and other purposes if they weren't properly constructed. The Clan doesn't believe in wasting resources by building something that won't perform it's intended functions properly.'

'Do you know how many of these ships you'll be giving the Bajorans?'

'Well, they do require a fairly large crew, not counting any troops that they carry inside as well. And some of them are going to be designed for different functions. We were thinking about maybe one or two dozen of them that were designed as general purpose ships for collecting AM and resources from inside the system for them to use, about half a dozen that were designed more like shuttles with cabins for those who were traveling on them for longer trips, and two or three dozen of them that were designed more like our current HATs so that they could be used for system security and that could also be used to transport troops to their destination.'

Kyra's eyes were wide with surprise as she realized that Kahmmhi was talking about giving the Bajorans somewhere between forty and seventy ships that would require about forty people each to man them. And the troop ships could actually transport one hundred or more troops each, giving Bajor the capability of landing a force that was large enough to actually board enemy warships if that became necessary. That was definitely sufficient force to allow her system to maintain their own autonomy and security.

Yamato nodded sagely. 'A very good force composition for their current needs, and as their population and their resource base increases, they can expand their own forces in time. They could even build larger ships to carry their small craft and begin building their own navy.'

Kyra didn't even want to think about that at the present time, though she knew that eventually she wouldn't be the only Bajoran who would be thinking and dreaming of that goal. Their war with the Cardassians, and their abandonment by the Federation until it became politically expedient for the Federation to occupy their system for "security concerns" after the Cardassians had stripped their system of resources and abandoned it had both given the average Bajoran citizen reason to distrust both the Cardassians and the Federation. They had become fiercely independent as a result of their recent history and their interactions with other civilizations.

'So, the Bajorans have been improving their standard of living and making good use of the resources that we gave them, and we can help them improve upon that while we're here this time as well. What of the members of the Alliance?'

'We've all three been upgrading the ships that you gave us, making sure that they're properly armored and as well armed as we can make them. Transporters no longer work on any of the ships, and they all carry more small craft as a result so that we can get things on and off of them when we need to.'

Kahmmhi nodded, waiting for Yamato to continue. 'We've been doing what we could with the larger ships first, and have most of them manned and crewed well enough to keep them functional. They could still use more troops in their security forces, but we have enough troops on each of them to properly protect the ship and still send out at least some boarding parties or offensive ground forces.'

Korg nodded. 'The number of ships that are completed varies, but we're doing well in making sure that all of them are converted and upgraded as soon as possible.'

'How is that coming?'

Korg looked down at his comp. 'We have completed all six battleships and most of the battle frigates. About twenty five warships are currently in service, mostly being used as heavy scouts.'

Sorn'Kek nodded as he looked at his own comp. 'That's about where we are as well.'

Yamato sighed. 'The Federation has completed four battleships, fifty battle frigates, twenty warships, and forty scouts.' She appeared to be embarrassed, since she knew that despite their greater size and resource base, the Federation wasn't even matching either of their allies, let alone both of them.

Korg shrugged. 'We know that you do things more slowly. That just means that if we replace all of the engines in the ships, you won't have to go through as much hull armor on some of them. At least, not on many of the larger ones. And if you just upgrade the ones that haven't already been modified and upgraded first, you can trade them out for the ones that are already finished to your previous specifications as they become available.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'That's actually a good suggestion. Though you might also just get all of them into service and then start working on removing the older ships and upgrading them to match the others. You could even have improved your systems enough to allow them to be better than the others.'

Yamato smiled, wishing that what Kahmmhi had just said would happen, but it would take some very large changes in the Federation and their leadership for anything like that to happen in the foreseeable future. Still, there WAS hope, since there had already been a number of major changes since the Clan had first found the Federation in their time of dire need. Perhaps that would be enough to allow her to influence their leaders and make them see the necessity of doing more than they had been doing already. Kahmmhi could be very persuasive when she really tried.

'And what about the other uses and technology?'

Yamato sighed. 'StarFleet is currently making good use of the synthesizers, and that technology is spreading slowly throughout the Federation. It's limited in its use by civilian individuals so far, but we are gradually making it more and more widespread for both military and commercial organizations as the production rates allow. As for some of the other technology, they're still trying to study it and adapt it for our society.'

Kahmmhi was actually surprised that the Federation was that far along in their development of the technology and capabilities that the Clan had given them. They must be really concerned about their safety, or someone was clearly figuring out a way to capitalize on the new technology.

'Every planet in the Klingon Empire has at least some of the new technology available, and its use is spreading as they become capable of manufacturing it in more and more places and in greater quantities.'

Sorn'Kek nodded. 'That is the news that we receive from the Romulan Empire as well. Our more centralized geography makes it easier for us to spread our technological improvements throughout the empire more quickly.'

'And what about your manpower quotas?'

Sorn'Kek sighed. 'While we are a militaristic society, there are still limits on how fast we can properly train new troops, especially those who are required for specialized units that have certain demands on the training and skills necessary to do the job properly. We are working on training as many crews for the new ships as we can, but it will still take several more decades before all of the ships that you gave us are fully manned, including their offensive forces. That time may decrease if the new technology makes it possible for us to convert at least some of our larger ships into carriers, similar to some of your ships.'

Korg nodded. 'We are at about the same stage in our own training, though our numbers are actually slightly higher than that of the Romulans. Our young mature faster, so they are able to become warriors at a younger age.'

'The Federation is increasing its enrollment at StarFleet, and we're increasing the size of classes in certain fields of training so that we can get enough qualified experts to run various systems on the ships in our fleet. But even if we do all of the modifications and everything else, it will still be several decades before all of the ships that you gave us are fully operational.'

Virginia sighed. 'At least they're being open, up front, and honest with us, Kahm.'

'So we'll know how to judge the politicians when they give us their answers?' Kahmmhi sighed. 'I know that you are all doing what you can, but if you don't speed things up, your governments might not BE your governments if any of your competitors in the nearby quadrants suddenly discover some of the same technologies that you have recently acquired. Remember, there are civilizations out there that are HIGHLY aggressive, and they are fighting on much larger scales than anything that you have ever faced. Including the attack on DS9. You will need more ships, and you will need to have your entire fleet fully crewed if you face a fleet of ten thousand or more ships that are all much larger than most of the ships that you faced at DS9. Even your current fleet, with all of their extensive modifications and upgrades, can only do so much in the face of that much firepower. And counting on the Cardassians, the Breen, or anyone else that you know of is a false hope. The Cardassian fleet wouldn't make any difference at all, even if it was as large and powerful as the one that attacked this system. Their ships are simply too small, too poorly armored, and their weapons are too weak and too limited in range to even make a difference in the outcome of the battle.'

Yamato and the others looked concerned. 'Things are really that bad?'

'They could quite easily become that bad. Some of the battles that our scouts witnessed were massive and very aggressive by your standards. There are some civilizations out there that don't accept surrender once the battle has begun. They destroy all enemy ships, even those that have been totally disabled and are no longer a threat. Some board the ships and take them intact, but they kill their prisoners once they know that they've acquired all of the military and scientific information that they will need from them.'

Korg's eyes became hard. 'We will redouble our training, especially for our offensive forces who are intended to board enemy ships. And we will make sure that our fleet commanders are prepared to fight to the bitter end, if that becomes necessary.'

Sorn'Kek nodded, looking very determined. 'I will make sure that our leaders know of this particular threat, and the extreme danger that it poses to the entire Romulan Empire and our allies.'

Yamato sighed, looking resigned. 'I'll do what I can, but I sometimes think that the pressure from our allies does more to make our leaders live up to their contractual obligations to the Alliance than anything that they hear from their own military commanders does. At least I can make sure that they know about this as soon as possible, so they shouldn't have any reason to be "surprised" when they learn of it from our allies.' She sounded almost forlorn as she added, 'Though, for some reason, I'm almost certain that they will be. The memories of politicians are as fleeting and fickle as the threats that require them to actually take a stand and make a decision.'

Kahmmhi chuckled. 'When we dealt with the Llyriana or others who had politicians, we found that playing back their earlier comments that were captured on vid quickly restored all kinds of memory lapses. It also motivated them to live up to their promises, since everyone thought that they'd already been doing that before they had been reminded of their prior promises.'

Korg laughed openly. 'That would certainly motivate at least some of them to do something in order to keep from becoming publicly ridiculed.'

Yamato shook her head. 'Ridicule they could live with. It costs them nothing that they can't afford to lose. But too much public scrutiny and dissatisfaction could mean that someone else will have their job, and that will cost them as nothing else possibly could. You don't get promoted and get into even more powerful positions when you're being shown up as an incompetent who simply tells people what they want to hear and then does nothing at all to solve the problems that were brought to your attention. Especially when you had assured everyone that the problem was well in hand, and that you were taking care of solving it.'

Sorn'Kek nodded. 'Allowing something that went wrong to be attributed directly to your own incompetence would be a very bad thing. People die for things like that.'

Kahmmhi actually thought that the Romulans had a way that worked if they actually killed some of those who were responsible for huge screw-ups simply because they had refused to do their job. Incompetence might not be intentional, but you knew if you could do your job or not, and keeping the job when you knew that you couldn't do it, knowing that your incompetence was getting people killed in the long run, was something that the Clan considered bad enough to remove the offender from the Clan permanently. One way or another.

Virginia shook her head. 'Some of you had better start convincing your leaders that they need to spend some of their resources and time on actually building their fleets if they expect to continue to exist. For a galaxy that shows no signs of the Consortium having ever been there, your galaxy is very violent and bloody, especially in comparison to what we've seen of the Alpha quadrant. The amount of resources that you spend on your own defense, which is your primary way to ensure your own survival, since you don't really do much in the way of planetary defenses, is way too low to do much against a determined enemy force. The Dominion could have conquered the entire Alpha quadrant, and then all of your races would be extinct or enslaved to serve them as warriors to expand their own empire.'

Everyone in the room who wasn't Clan looked very serious, but none of them challenged Virginia or her comments. As far as they were concerned, she was only stating the obvious. Now all that they had to do was convince their superiors of the truth of those statements. Their survival, and that of their races and civilizations, could depend on it.

Kahmmhi sighed. 'If you can't convince your governments to do more to make sure that your defenses are sufficient to handle the threats that you meet, there is one thing that I can suggest that you might want to do.'

'What is that?' All of the others looked very intrigued, and were eager to hear anything that might help them do their best to perform their duties and save those who they were supposed to protect.

'Make sure that your families are on your ships before you have to flee from the enemy. Take as many of the civilians with you as you can afford to keep alive, but when you do, make sure that they are simply civilians, and not those who were in charge of creating this debacle in the first place. Leave your politicians to die alongside all of those that they have condemned to death by their own inaction, save what you can of your civilization and your gene pool, and turn your ships into generational ships. Go Clan on them, and continue to fight. Use the resources around you, the AM from hyperspace, and whatever ships and resources that you can take from your enemy, to destroy your enemy and eventually defeat him.'

'Planning to do something like that would be treason.' Yamato seemed adamant.

Kahmmhi smiled, but it was so chilling a sight that even Korg's blood ran cold. 'Plan for the very worst case scenario that you can envision, and then plan to survive something that is even worse than that. Contingency plans aren't treason. They're simply a way for you and whatever forces you still have to fall back on something that was devised when you weren't defeated, tired, overwhelmed, and unable to think clearly because of your current situation. You simply rely on your plan to help you make sure that you don't make mistakes that will get even more of your people killed or cost you even more of the forces that remain to you.'

'But you're suggesting that we abandon our leaders and make ourselves the leaders of our people.'

'Your leaders are responsible for protecting everyone who is under them. If they can't do that, then they deserve to remain behind and die with those that they failed. Those who manage to survive the combat have proven that they can fight and survive, and they will be motivated to protect as many of those that they were fighting to save as they possibly can. Most of your leaders, once things become that bad, are simply concerned with protecting their own lives, and don't care for the lives of the people who followed them and did as they said.'

Korg nodded. 'We can't make such plans known to our leaders, but we will make sure that if our leaders fail us, our race won't die if we can help it.'

Sorn'Kek nodded his head in agreement. 'I concur. We won't abandon our leaders, but if it comes to a choice between saving our leaders and saving our race, our leaders can save themselves.'

Yamato sighed, then nodded. 'Agreed. Though I will have to be very careful about who I share such plans with, since there are many officers in StarFleet itself who are more interested in politics than they are in the goals and objectives of StarFleet or the oaths of service that they took.'

Korg chuckled. 'Unfortunately, there are at least some of those in all of our fleets.' He looked at Kahmmhi very intently, smiled, and said, 'Except for one.'

The others noticed his gaze, then nodded. The average Clan warrior was singleminded in their devotion to the Clan. It was how they survived, both as individuals and as a race. And from what they had been able to learn from the Clan and all of the Clan records that they had ever accessed, the civilians in the Clan were just as singleminded in their support of the goals of the Clans. If the Federation and the Alliance could ever achieve half as much support for their necessary military operations, the entire Alpha quadrant would be safe from the rest of the galaxy, even if they had to stand and fight against all of the other races in the galaxy at the same time.

Sisko sighed. 'Kyra, if anything like that happens, what would Bajor do?'

'Spend all of our time building as many ships as we could, and then save as many of our people as we could. Even if we couldn't build huge ships, a lot of small ones would allow us to move around through hyper and avoid being detected by the enemy for a while, at the very least. In time, perhaps, we could find someplace safe to settle for a while. At least long enough for us to build some larger ships to carry our small craft.' She grinned maliciously. 'Then we would definitely go Clan on our enemies. Try to make sure that we rescued any Bajorans who had been left behind, if there were still any of them left alive to rescue. Then we'd show the enemy why the Cardassians finally left our planet and our race alone.'

Kahmmhi looked at Kyra, then said something to Virginia in Llyriana. Virginia smiled and nodded. They could add some stasis tubes to the HATs that they made for the Bajorans without the Federation or anyone else knowing anything about it. That would allow them to save at least some civilians without stressing their life support or driving the civilians nuts with long trips through hyper in an overcrowded HAT. Just in case.

'OK. Just so you know, we did have a few minor skirmishes while we were in the Delta quadrant. We ran into some Dominion fleets a few times, and we destroyed all of them simply out of general principle, since they were our enemy. We attacked the home world of the Founders, destroying it, the invasion fleet that was still in orbit around the planet, and all of the Founders who were there. We ran into some other races that were violent and aggressive, and when we tried to contact them, they attacked us, so we destroyed their ships so that they couldn't tell the rest of their race anything about us or our capabilities. And we ran into the Borg.'

Virginia nodded, smiling as Kahmmhi looked at her and nodded. She sighed. 'Kahmmhi had us keep all kinds of records of our explorations in the Delta quadrant, and we may be giving at least some of those records to the Alliance. We managed to explore six hundred and eighty four systems during the time that we were in the Delta quadrant, and we also managed to explore a number of other systems in the Alpha, Delta, and Gamma quadrants while we were at DS9 before. We have a complete compilation of the hyper maps that our scouts put together since we arrived here.'

Everyone in the room looked at her, realizing that such maps would be invaluable now that they actually had the capability of traveling through hyper themselves.

'Such maps would be of immense value to the entire Alliance.'

'Yes, they would. And we could also show you how to manufacture and position comsats at the hyper points so that you could send communications through hyper instead of relying on subspace.'

'What benefits would that provide us?'

'First of all, other cultures who lacked the ability to travel through hyper could only attempt to intercept your messages when they traveled through real space inside a system when they were going from one comsat to another. Second, the distance between systems is greatly reduced inside hyperspace, so the message travels from one system to another very rapidly. Minutes in many cases, and hours in others. The speed of light is a constant, even in hyperspace, but the distance isn't the same as it is in real space.'

The others nodded, already realizing that hyper streams were like folds in space where a wormhole folded the space between two points and connected them with a hyper stream that allowed them to be connected via a shortcut. It could take days or weeks to travel what would be vast distances through real space, depending on the natural speed of the hyper stream and the distance between the two systems that were connected.

'Third, we can show you how to shield the comsats and use the antimatter that is in hyperspace to power them indefinitely. Properly placed and started, comsats could literally function for millennia without any problems, but that depends on the construction and the materials that are used. Even with your tech, they should be capable of lasting for centuries before they would need to be replaced.'

Everyone in the room was impressed by that statement. Faster communications would allow much better coordination between the three members of their alliance, since their geographic distribution currently made it difficult for them all three to resolve issues as quickly as they would like.

'In fact, we're fairly certain that if you use hyperspace as a method of travel, you'll be able to travel between various systems in each of your spheres of influence much more rapidly than you currently can. And once you've mapped out those routes and put in a comsat system, communications between the seats of power will probably be much easier and quicker than anything that you currently have. Hyper comsats will work in systems that don't have a naturally occurring hyper point, allowing you to maintain communications with them even if you can't use hyper to reach them, but you can't really place comsats in those systems until you have figured out how to open a hyper portal on your own.'

'That would definitely be helpful. Especially in times of emergency or some disaster, since it would significantly decrease the response time for any relief forces to arrive to render assistance.'

Yamato nodded, agreeing with Sorn'Kek's assessment. 'It would also allow us to spread our fleets out within our own systems without having to wait so long for them to gather a task force if we were ever attacked.'

Korg smiled. 'And if we use hyper to explore, we don't run the risk of leading a potentially hostile enemy force directly back to our own systems, since we can evade detection until we know that it's safe to make first contact with them. We can study them and learn about them without them even knowing that we're there.'

Kahmmhi and Virginia exchanged glances, knowing that those same tactics could also be used to launch sneak attacks or preemptive strikes against any dangerous forces that they ran across, but that the Federation and their allies were unlikely to begin doing such attacks for the simple reason that they already had more than enough enemies, and they didn't need to worry about making any more. Their civilizations were already stressing themselves just to come up with the resources that were necessary to upgrade and maintain the fleets that they currently had, and their leaders were well aware that if they engaged in any hostilities against other spacefaring civilizations, they could require a much larger and stronger fleet than they currently had if they wished to survive the war.

Kahmmhi sighed, deciding that she needed to keep the conversation on the topic at hand before they strayed too far afield. 'Yes. Well, your governments will have to come up with some type of agreement about what they are going to do concerning their propulsion systems. Gravitics will work well enough to replace your current impulse engines without any problems. It's faster, doesn't require fuel, and can even provide your ship with extra energy by harnessing part of the EM field as they travel through it. And gravitics is what will allow your ships to actually travel through the hyper streams without any real difficulties.'

Yamato nodded. 'But...'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'But you lack the technology, resources, and ability to build ships that are capable of traveling through hyper like our own ships do. You can't actually create a hyper portal anywhere that you wish, so you can't skip through hyper within a system or between systems like our ships can. And, to be honest, while we don't mind if it occasionally takes a year or two to travel from one system to another by skipping through real space by doing hyper microjumps, your own people's lives aren't that long, so that would pose some problems for you. You're stuck using hyper to reach systems that have naturally occurring hyper portals, and you have to rely on the connections that are formed by the hyper streams. I'm sure that some of your systems aren't going to have hyper portals, so you will still need to have warp engines or other engines in your ships to allow you to travel through space at speeds that will maintain your connection with those systems.'

Yamato nodded. 'That means that we'd have to build ships that were bigger than the Voyager class ships, since your techs weren't able to retain the warp engines and still put in all of the engines and modifications that were made to that ship.'

Virginia shook her head. 'Not necessarily. We didn't keep the warp engines because we had no use for them, and we were trying to get Voyager back here as soon as we could. We didn't have the time to rebuild the ship properly, and to be honest, we don't have one of our shipyards with us, so we stuck to repairs and modifications that we could do quickly and easily with the resources that we did have available. Technically, we could have repaired and upgraded Voyager in about half the time, but that would have required us to use materials and technology that we're not prepared to give you access to.'

Yamato nodded. 'So, Voyager is a good blueprint to work from, but we may be able to retain our current warp engines for use when we're not traveling at sublight speeds or traveling through hyperspace.'

'That's correct. And you could probably even improve on the Voyager class if you build the ships with the upgrades from the start. Assuming that you want to build ships that small.'

Korg laughed. While the Voyager class was relatively small by Clan standards, it wasn't exactly a tiny or weak ship. Especially not with the upgrades that the Clan had made in its weapons and armor. And it was much more agile than any ship that the Alliance currently had, since it could undertake evasive maneuvers that would literally tear even a Defiant class ship apart at the seams, quantum armor notwithstanding.

'Since we don't have Voyager class ships of our own, the closest ship that is similar is the warship class that you captured and gave to us. We could try to rebuild them while incorporating the changes that you made to armor and weapons on Voyager, and that would give us a number of ships that were quite capable of performing the various duties within our own borders. Then we could do the same thing to the larger ships that are going to be more dedicated to defense force against threats from outside our borders, and we would have the beginnings of a truly effective war fleet.'

Sorn'Kek and Yamato nodded their heads in agreement. That would work, and would require less intensive use of their available resources than building the ships from scratch. And the best part was that it wouldn't require much more time, effort, and resources than the current plans for rebuilding the ships would otherwise use.

'That could work. Now all that we have to do is convince our leaders of that fact and we could expand our fleets much more rapidly than the current projections indicate.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. Dealing with their leaders was their problem, as was how their leaders ultimately ended up determining how they would use the resources that they had been given by the Clan.

'What you decide to do is up to you. We will, however, be honoring our commitment to the Bajorans, regardless of what StarFleet, or the Alliance as a whole, decides to do.'

Yamato nodded, smiling wryly as she realized what Kahmmhi was doing. StarFleet might try to drag their feet because the Federation was the most bureaucracy laden of the three governments in the Alliance, but since they knew that they had to keep up with the Romulan Empire and the Klingon Empire in order to remain an equal member of the Alliance, they would do whatever it took to maintain their parity with the others. And since the Bajorans weren't technically in the Alliance on anyone's side, Kahmmhi was treating them as a neutral third party while still treating the entire Alliance as a single group. While there were still some among all three parties in the Alliance who might object to such behavior, none of their leaders was going to complain to Kahmmhi about it, since they were generally getting the technology handed to them in exchange for almost nothing in return.

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Well, we should enjoy the time to talk and relax while we can, because the politicians are going to arrive in this system soon enough.'

Korg scowled. 'That will definitely change the atmosphere around this place.'

'I'm sure that we'll find a few things to liven things up, Korg. After all, they're expecting to be coming out here to talk to us and see what they can get for themselves. They don't even realize that there are going to be other groups participating in the discussions and the transfer of information.'

Sorn'Kek and the others looked confused. 'Other groups?'

'Well, Janeway and her experts are going to be representing Voyager and going over the information with them once we work out the details on the exchange of information and a few other things.'

'Yes. But they're part of the Federation, aren't they?'

'Not exactly. As far as we're concerned, they're a separate group right now, since half of the crew of the ship and at least half of the experts who discovered and implemented everything with your technology are definitely NOT members of the Federation.'

Yamato, Sorn'Kek, and Korg nodded as they realized what she was getting at.

'And I also intend for Kyra, Sisko, and possibly a few others to represent this system and Bajor's interests, since Bajor is still independent, having not been made a member system of the Federation.'

Yamato's eyes widened as she realized what Kahmmhi was saying. Bajor was technically under the protection of the Federation and, by extension, under the protection of the entire Alliance for their mutual self protection, but it wasn't a member of the Federation itself. The Clan was now dealing with the Bajorans as a separate neutral group, and that whatever the Clan gave to the Bajorans was totally independent of what they gave to the Alliance. Including the fleet of small craft that they had already promised to give to Bajor once they had built modified HATs. Not to mention the construction of a number of cities on Bajor itself that they had promised to do so that Bajor's population had a better standard of living.

Korg smiled broadly. 'I knew that I could count on you to make things exciting around here, Kahmmhi. You might not have brought us another enemy to fight and kill, but I think that I'm going to enjoy watching the fireworks around here just the same.'

Yamato rolled her eyes. Fireworks wasn't exactly the term that came to her mind when she thought of the reactions that some of the delegates who were being sent here might actually have when they found out what was going on. Though they should already know by now that the best laid plans all came to naught whenever Kahmmhi and the Clan were involved.

Kahmmhi smiled sweetly and feigned innocence. 'I don't know what you're talking about, Korg. We're just going to sit down and discuss the transfer of additional technology with your representatives. The only thing that they aren't aware of is that we're transferring some additional technology to an independent group that they haven't bothered trying to incorporate, despite this system's obvious importance to the entire Alliance, since it is a key part of your defenses against two of the greatest known threats that you've already encountered before. It is the key to getting your people into the Delta quadrant quickly while using only your current technology, and it is the one place where both the Dominion and the Borg know that they can find a quick way into this quadrant.'

'Yes. This system will remain a key system for the entire Alliance for a long time to come, even if we do manage to get everything worked out and begin using hyperspace for travel between systems on a routine basis. While we may be able to begin using hyperspace, we don't know of any other species in our galaxy that already has that capability, so any of the hostile forces in the Delta quadrant that want to come to the Alpha quadrant without having a supply line that is sixty or seventy years longer than it otherwise would be is going to want to come through the wormhole in this system.'

Korg nodded grimly. 'Which is why we have so much of our available fleet here right now. To make sure that this system and control of the wormhole does NOT fall into enemy hands.'

Kahmmhi's stomach began growling audibly. She smiled at the others. 'Sounds like it's time for lunch.'

Yamato and the others nodded. 'Yes. I think that we've covered about as much as we can before the delegates arrive in this system. Let's eat.'

Korg chuckled. 'Yeah. Eat hearty now, before the politicians and reporters arrive and we all lose our appetites.'

Karv'Tarek watched quietly as the journalists and representatives crowded around the viewports, anxiously awaiting their first view of the system near DS9 when they dropped out of warp. He knew that they were being overly optimistic, since the Clan kept their ships stealthed almost all of the time, so there was no way for anyone in the Federation to detect them, especially without instruments. As he had expected, there were some gasps of disappointment from some of the people in the room when they came out of warp inside the system and they were unable to detect anything that resembled the Clan ships. There was more conversation afterwards as several of them discussed the fact that they couldn't see Voyager either. While they knew that they couldn't see the Alliance ships inside the system without sensors because they were cloaked, they knew that at least their sensors did allow them to detect the cloaked Alliance ships. After that, the journalists made the most of their time and the view by discussing the ships that they could see. Most of their comments were meaningless, and they didn't really relate anything that was new or unknown to the general population of the Federation.

He shook his head in wonder as they discussed the huge, immense ships that were inside this system, and compared the vast fleet to the fleet that had been sent to defend this system against the Dominion forces during their recent war. None of them actually realized that the Federation and the Alliance couldn't possibly have won that encounter if it hadn't been for the assistance that the Clan had given them. Even without the largest ships that had been captured, the rest of the Dominion fleet had been too numerous, and their ships too strong, for the Alliance to have possibly prevailed against the forces that were arrayed against them. Even if they had been able to inflict ten to one losses in their favor, the Dominion fleet would have won the war by attrition, leaving the members of the Alliance in a very vulnerable position that would have eventually resulted in them losing the war.

One of the reporters approached him, his cameraman obviously filming. Karv'Tarek hid his expression, trying to emulate the Vulcans, as he realized that it was Roy Buckingham. At least it wasn't Fitzsimmons.

'Admiral, could we have a few moments of your time, please?'

Karv'Tarek nodded, giving assent. The man was being polite, and he was supposed to do what he could to maintain good relations in his job as military liaison.

'We were wondering what you could tell us anything about the Clan, or about their leader. You've met her before, haven't you?'

Karv'Tarek smiled. 'Yes, I have met the leader of this Clan force, though she is not the leader of her Clan. They are addressing her as such because she is the daughter of their leader, but their entire Clan is much larger than the few ships that found us.' He couldn't help but chuckle. 'Though she calls her ships "small", since she is only leading one of their scout forces.'

'Yes. Their ships represent a small percentage of her Clan's total force, I believe.'

'Her Clan has three hundred more ships than she has with her, and some of them are much larger and many times more powerful than the one ship that she has with her that she says is large, and that is not normally used for scouting.'

'I have interviewed experts who have said that the only reason that the Clan was able to act so decisively in the battle for this system was because they ambushed the Dominion forces, and that if they hadn't been able to hide their ships so completely from the Dominion, they wouldn't have been able to defeat them.'

Karv'Tarek stared at him as if he were insane. 'I don't know which "experts" told you this, but I can guarantee you that their ability to keep us and everyone else from detecting their ships did nothing at all to alter the impact that their superior technology and tactics had on the outcome of the battle. They have weapons that work in ways that we can't even begin to understand, and their lasers are effective at distances at least ten times that of the strongest phasers or disruptors that we can produce. Or haven't you seen the data on the abilities of the new ships that have been reworked using Clan technology?'

'I've heard that they are impressive, but there are so few of them, and their lasers can't possibly work as well as they claim.'

'Our lasers push the limits of our own technology to allow them to produce as much power and energy as they do, but those that the Clan have are much more powerful and have much greater range as well. Our lasers are in the red end of the spectrum, while theirs are in the violet end of the spectrum, right at the very edge of the ultraviolet range. That means that they are much more powerful than ours. They have greater range, more power, and they are operating on a more powerful wavelength.' He sighed. 'The very best that we can do is make lasers that can reach four million kilometers on the very largest ships that we have, and the ships that are the size of a Sovereign class or Galaxy class ship can only generate enough power to make their lasers effective for about two million kilometers. Their smallest and weakest shipboard lasers are good for about six million kilometers, and those on their larger ships are even more powerful.'

'But our experts say that it's physically impossible to...'

Karv'Tarek cut him off. 'Your experts are clueless idiots who haven't even seen the new technology. They are working on assumptions that are based on our understanding of the technology and physics. Assumptions which, as we have seen clearly demonstrated by the Clan, are neither correct nor absolute. The technology that the Clan uses is capable of producing things that are beyond our capabilities. I've actually seen Clan lasers cutting through both shields and ships at a range of at least seven million kilometers. Since I've actually seen it being done under combat conditions, and have seen the ships that were destroyed by it and examined them after the battle was over, it can't be physically impossible, now, can it?'

Buckingham looked astonished, unable to think of a proper response to such an unprecedented outburst. His videographer was smiling, trying to keep from laughing at the way that Karv'Tarek had finally had to make his point. His opinion of the small female rose somewhat.

'Um, er, can you give us any insight into Kahmmhi herself?'

Finally, he was asking a question that showed some intelligence. Something that might be of value, and which wasn't totally based on groundless, unverified opinions from those who didn't actually know anything firsthand.

'She is extremely intelligent, and she does not back down from any type of challenge or threat. I have no idea how she thinks, but I do know that trying to figure out what she's really after before she tells you is a complete waste of time. She can be very devious, and can hide her true goals right under your nose until she wants you to see them. Even with all that she has told us, we still don't know all that much about Clan technology and their culture.'

'But, from what I've seen and heard, we know a great deal about the Clan and their culture.'

Karv'Tarek shook his head. 'No. We have learned a lot of individual facts and snippets of data concerning the Clans, their history, their culture, and their technology, but we still don't have a really good idea of exactly what their culture is like, how it works, or why. Their way of thinking is totally alien to our own, or to that of anyone that we have ever met before. In some ways, they are more like the Borg than any species that we have ever met.'

'The Borg?' Buckingham looked confused. 'Is that because of their physiology, or their use of technology to enhance their own bodies?'

'No. Definitely not. I merely referred to their singleminded determination and their seemingly universal drive to achieve a single goal. The Borg seek to assimilate new technology and attempt to perfect their bodies by making themselves more machine-like to achieve their eventual goal of becoming machine perfection.'

'And the Clan?'

'Clans. There are more than fifty of them, and according to Kahmmhi, hers is one of the smaller Clans. They seek to live, and in order to do that, they wage war against those who would kill them. They attack their enemies constantly and mercilessly, and they all agree that the only way for them to win their war and insure the survival of their species, and that of all of the other species that they consider "humanity", is for them to eventually eradicate their enemy completely. They are in a war that will result in either the annihilation and extinction of their enemy, or of the Clans.'

'That sounds totally barbaric. Genocide? How could the Federation allow them to continue such practices?'

Karv'Tarek laughed, surprising Buckingham and gaining the attention of many of the others who were near them having quiet discussions among themselves. 'Allow them? The Federation has no right, duty, or obligation to even attempt to stop the Clans from living their own lives and doing as they have for longer than our own civilizations have even existed, much less been capable of space travel by any means at all. And whether you realize it or not, the Alliance couldn't begin to FORCE even Kahmmhi to stop what she is doing, even if they wanted to. We lack the resources, the manpower, and the military capabilities to enforce our will upon them.'

'What about the MACOs?'

Karv'Tarek turned to look at Fitzsimmons, surprised that he had interjected that question. 'What about them?'

'We still have millions of them in stasis. Surely they could provide the manpower we'd need if the Federation decided that we should intervene and stop the Clans from continuing on a path of genocide against their enemies.'

Karv'Tarek wondered if Fitzsimmons even realized that he was actually suggesting that the Federation use those who had been genetically enhanced and produced by eugenics to become better warriors to fight against those who were born and bred for war. That he was suggesting using eugenics to stop genocide.

Karv'Tarek smiled. 'Millions of them. You actually have millions of MACOs, and you think that you could use them to force your will upon the Clans. Do you have any idea of the comparison of speed, strength, intelligence, and combat skills between a MACO and a typical Clan Alpha?'

'No. I'm sure that we have to have some idea of exactly how strong a typical Clan warrior is, though.'

'Yes. We do. A MACO is strong enough to go hand to hand against a Klingon, a Romulan, or a Vulcan, and many of them can actually win in such a contest of speed or strength, especially if they are well trained in hand to hand combat. Against the enemies that the Clan fights, the MACOs would require the odds to be in their favor if they went hand to hand, simply because their enemies are larger and stronger than a MACO.'

'That is why there are so many MACOs. They were bred to fight, but we couldn't be sure that we had enough of them to defend everywhere at once unless we had some stationed at various points around the Federation so that we had some to fight while others were being brought to the combat zone.'

Karv'Tarek shook his head, looking disgusted. 'Let's say that you had ten million MACOs, and you were going to use them in ground combat against Clan combat troops. And let's say that the Clan couldn't use their superior technology to defeat your MACOs. Clan troops wear armor that is impervious to every weapon that we have. And during the war against the Dominion, they faced Jem'Haddar troops while they were outnumbered hundreds to one. They used their swords so that they could take the ships that they had boarded relatively intact simply because the small arms that they typically use against their enemies on board their ships would have blown the Dominion ships into mangled debris. And before you ask, a small Clan female is stronger and faster than any species that we know of. The twenty thousand troops that they used to make sure that DS9 wasn't boarded could probably handle ten million MACOs on their own, but they only represent a small fraction of the forces that Kahmmhi has available. Her entire Clan would have many more troops than that, and they are a SMALL Clan.'

Fitzsimmons looked stunned, and most of the others were clearly shocked as well. 'If you really want to know what you're dealing with, you should ask your press liaison to show you the two incidents that occurred on board DS9 involving Kahmmhi. She was attacked once by armed Nosikans, and was in a duel with a Romulan officer on another occasion. She wasn't in armor either time.' Karv'Tarek smiled. 'In fact, the duel was fought while she was nude and unarmed simply because she didn't think that it was fair to use any blade that she had against someone whose best weapons couldn't possibly hope to survive against her blade.'

Buckingham nodded. 'I've heard rumors about that, but nothing has been confirmed or released to the public. Can you tell us what happened?'

'The Romulan blade, and I know for a fact that it was one of the very best that we're capable of producing, was crushed and mangled in her bare hand. She killed the Romulan officer.'

'And the Romulan Empire had no problems with that?'

Karv'Tarek shrugged. 'He had already exceeded his authority, ignored several warnings about his conduct, and had insisted on a duel. He knew going in that he was already disgraced, and that only by winning the duel would he even be allowed to live at all. She tried to allow him to live, but he refused, and intentionally baited her to get a response from her, hoping to take advantage of her anger and aggression to win. He was stupid. He died trying to achieve something that was clearly well beyond his capabilities and his station. Why would we have a problem with her killing him? She just saved us the trouble of killing him ourselves.'

None of the others had an answer for that. They all knew that the Romulan Empire had some very strange rules on how to advance yourself in rank, and that assassinations were routinely used to achieve high rank even faster by opening up a position for advancement. But none of them were intimately familiar with Romulan culture, and didn't want to get into something that complex right now. They simply accepted his explanation.

Karv'Tarek left, and Angela Richards was immediately swarmed by the reporters, all of them requesting access to the files that Karv'Tarek had mentioned. She silently cursed the Romulan for even bringing up something that was THAT highly classified in front of the reporters, and wondered who she needed to approach to even begin to broach the topic of allowing the reporters access to the files, even if it was still restricted enough that they could only watch it and couldn't record it at all.

'Sir, we're being hailed by the Maximilian. They are in the system, and are requesting transporter coordinates for them to beam aboard the station.'

Sisko smiled. 'Give them the coordinates, Mr. Worf. Please inform them of the problems that they can expect to encounter during beaming, and offer them a docking site if they would prefer.'

'Aye, sir.'

Worf was busy communicating with the Sovereign class ship for almost a minute, then began going into a more detailed explanation of the problem. After another minute, he looked up and smiled at Sisko.

'They are going to be coming by shuttle, sir. The admiral's yacht. They will dock in approximately half an hour.'

'Inform everyone of when the reception will be held, Mr. Worf. Dress attire.'

'Of course, sir. What of Kahmmhi?'

'I'll contact her and inform her myself. Also, please inform the commanders of all three forces in the system so that they may attend the ceremony if they choose.'

Worf went to work contacting everyone while Sisko went to prepare for the ceremony himself. He'd been dreading this formal welcoming ceremony for over a week, but now it was finally going to be over with. Now all that he could hope for was that they could keep anything really bad from happening. Of course, that had been his one real concern every time that the Clan had been involved in ANY formal function that involved diplomats or politicians the last time that they were here. So far, Kahmmhi had been very diplomatic and understanding every time that there had been a problem, but he definitely did NOT want to push his luck.

Kahmmhi smiled as Virginia entered her quarters in uniform. She chuckled as she saw Kahmmhi standing there naked while trying to pick out an outfit.

'Don't take all day, girl. Besides, we both know that your favorite outfit isn't going to do for this ceremony, so you might as well just wear your normal silks.'

'I know that. I'm just trying to decide on the color.'

Virginia looked at the colors that were there, then shook her head. 'Go with something that contrasts with your skin. What about the gold and lavender?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'I suppose so. I do like the purples, and the gold really stands out on me.'

'And it goes with your eyes, since yours are the same color as your mother's are.'

Kahmmhi quickly dressed, and they went to find Janeway and the others. After they found them, they all went to the reception together, arriving there well before the official guests who were going to be greeted.

'Are they all here yet?'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'I don't know. They didn't say. I know that the Federation delegation is here, but I'm not sure about the other two. They could still take a few days to get here. Sisko said something about them doing a rendezvous and one ship bringing them here. One of the new ships, but I think it was only one of the warships that the Klingons had already fully converted.'

Janeway nodded, looking around nervously. All of the personnel from the station or the ships in the system who were here already were in full dress uniforms. Which only made her people stand out even more starkly, since they had opted not to dress in full dress uniforms until their disposition had been settled, since only half of her crew members were actually StarFleet personnel to begin with. They were dressed very similarly to Kahmmhi and Virginia, depending on their taste in fashion. She was wearing something very similar to what Virginia had on, though it was made of standard materials, and wasn't anywhere near as strong, durable, or protective as Virginia's uniform was.

The doors opened, and Sisko entered and brought the room to attention, standing to one side as a number of dignitaries and high ranking StarFleet personnel came into the room. They were accompanied by Admiral Korg, Admiral Karv'Tarek, and High Captain Sorn'Kek.

Kyra whispered softly, 'And I thought that there were a lot of stuffed shirts here the last time that you visited.'

Kahmmhi and her Shadows smiled. Sisko led the party over to where Kahmmhi was standing, smiling as he bowed formally to Kahmmhi. 'Tahr Kahhni Kahmmhi, please allow me to introduce the Federation delegates. These are Councillors Connie McNamara and Mike Andersson, Ambassadors Todd Williams and Gina Sanchez,

Rear Admiral Nancy Thompson of Federation Security, and their science experts. Dr. Irving Michaelson, Dr. Jillian Nakamura, and Dr. Vrron Koryll.'

Each of them shook hands with Kahmmhi as they were introduced. Sisko moved to gesture to the people who were filming everything as it happened. 'And these are the journalists who are trying to document everything for us. Angela Richards, of the Federation Press Office, is their liaison, and the person that you need to speak to if you have any problems with any member of the press. The reporters are Marlena Hargrave, Roy Buckingham, and August Scott Fitzsimmons. Their assistants are Benny Martinez, Sara Leedom, and Angus McAfee.'

Kahmmhi smiled sweetly. 'It's a pleasure to meet all of you.'

Sisko sighed, realizing that he had to get the rest of the introductions out of the way. 'Before we begin the formal reception and allow you to relax, allow me to introduce you to the rest of the party that is with Kahmmhi. You will all meet my staff later, so I won't bother to introduce them to you right now. This is Virginia, the commander of the fleet that Kahmmhi has with her. The four in total black armor are Kahmmhi's Shadows. And the rest are from the crew of the Voyager.'

All conversation stopped as they realized that the people dressed in casual attire weren't Clan members. 'This is Captain Catherine Janeway, her executive officer Chakotay, her science officer Commander Tuvok, her pilot Mr. Paris, her chief engineer B'elana Torres, and Seven of Nine.'

'You appear to be out of uniform, captain.'

Janeway smiled at the admiral. 'Until our status has been officially determined, we are taking our accrued shore leave for survivors, and are officially off duty, sir.'

The admiral inclined her head. 'Very well. I noticed that most of your personnel were not introduced by rank.'

'Half of my current crew are not officially StarFleet personnel, sir. While I did give them ranks commensurate with their skill, expertise, and stations aboard my ship, they were never officially recognized by StarFleet or the Federation. And none of my crew has had a formal evaluation or test for rank advancement in more than ten years, sir.'

'Yes. You seem to have been forced to operate under a very unique and extremely unusual set of circumstances while you were in the Delta quadrant.'

Sisko smiled, then addressed the Councillors, since they were technically the highest ranking diplomats present. 'If I may, the commanders of the task force that keeps this system secure and makes sure that we don't lose control of this connection to the Delta quadrant. Admiral Yamato, commanding the Federation forces, Admiral Korg, commanding the Klingon forces, and High Captain Sorn'Kek, commanding the Romulan forces in this system.'

'I notice that you didn't introduce Admiral Karv'Tarek yet, captain.'

Sisko smiled. 'There was no need to introduce him to Kahmmhi or her contingent, sir. She has already met with him and dealt with him before, and so have all of the fleet commanders inside this system.'

Kahmmhi smiled as Karv'Tarek stepped forward and bowed to her. 'Tahr Kahhni, it is good to see you again.'

'We missed you. Korg, Yamato, and Sorn'Kek were over for dinner the other night, and we spent half the night telling war stories, but all that we could say about you was that you were stuck flying a desk and wishing that you were somewhere where there was at least a chance that there might be some action. Besides the threat of deadly paper cuts or being buried alive and slowly suffocating under an avalanche of papers and forms.'

Karv'Tarek laughed. 'I won't say that I miss the smell of Korg's favorite blood wine, but at least I have my own synthesizer, so I can enjoy some really good vintages of Romulan ale from time to time. And the beest stew.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'That stuff will kill you. Besides, I thought you ate a mostly vegetarian diet.'

'I'm not a Vulcan. I do eat some meat. Though I do have to admit that chyrrka steaks are my downfall. The only really good thing about them, besides the taste, is that I don't consider giant hairy spiders to be animals, so even the Vulcans can't argue logically that eating them is eating meat.'

Kahmmhi and the others laughed at the joke, and even Tuvok had to admit that he had tried the chyrrka and found the flavor to be excellent. And while spiders were technically animals, there was some sense of logic to the argument that insects and arachnids weren't really meat animals.

'Perhaps we could set up some meetings to discuss things with you in private, Tahr Kahhni?' Admiral Thompson was being very pleasant and cordial.

Kahmmhi shook her head, smiling very cheerfully. 'I'm so very sorry, but my schedule is still very busy with all of the details that I have to attend to for my fleet to be ready for our eventual departure and journey to the location where we arrived here. But I will be very eager for the official meetings to begin once everyone is here and we can all meet formally to discuss everything that we need to go over. I assume that you did receive the list of things that we think are important enough to require consideration during our meetings? I did try to make sure that our communications people were specific enough that there wouldn't be any surprises once the meetings began.'

Councillor McNamara smiled. 'Yes. We did receive quite an extensive list of things that should be considered for discussion. I'm sure that we can narrow that down a bit in the interests of expediency and time.'

'Oh, certainly, Councillor. I'm sure that we can save a lot of time by eliminating the communications network, since that isn't really all that important. You do already have communications systems in place to allow you to communicate using subspace, and I'm sure that your people will eventually figure out a way to communicate effectively through hyperspace using the hyper streams.'

There were several audible gasps. 'Tahr Kahhni, be reasonable. Some of the things that were on your list are very complicated issues, and they simply aren't really important enough to require a delegation of this nature in order to adjudicate them.'

'I thought that I was being perfectly reasonable. When you said that some of the things on the list weren't very important, I immediately thought of that simply because it has nothing to do with any of the technology that we have already given you or agreed to help you develop, and it's not really necessary. It's not as if you're going to have to risk all kinds of deaths and side effects in order to develop such systems on your own, as you would while trying to develop a way to travel safely through hyperspace, even while you were using the hyper streams. I suppose that must reflect the differences in our cultures, showing what we consider important, and what we consider trivial.'

Ambassador Sanchez smiled very sweetly. 'Yes, there do appear to be a lot of cultural differences. Take time, for example. To you, a few decades isn't all that long, but to us, it is a significant portion of our lives.'

'That is very true. I'm sorry that I don't seem to relate to your situation very well, but I'm still relatively young and inexperienced, and I'm having to deal with a whole lot of things that nobody in the Clans has ever even thought that we'd ever have to deal with before. I am only about three hundred of your years old, more or less.'

Angela Richards blurted out, 'Only three hundred, and you consider that young? How old are some of the others in your Clan?'

'Well, my Shadows were originally in my grandfather's Clan, and they fought with him at Pehnt Drohvi, so all of them are more than three thousand Clan years old. That would make them about thirty six hundred years old according to your calendar.'

All of the scientists seemed to find that information fascinating. The journalists simply found it too good to be true, and immediately began trying to formulate ways to interview the Clan members and find out more about them and their lives. Some of the representatives found it disturbing on a number of levels to realize that they were actually talking with people who had been alive and fighting in space with technology that was more advanced than their own currently was when humans on Earth, and most of the other species in the Federation and the Alliance, had still been using stone tools or barely forged metals.

McNamara nodded, realizing that Kahmmhi had definitely made her point about how different their thinking and their cultures were. And she had just diplomatically demonstrated that there was some give and take in this relationship, and if they wanted some things, they were going to have to give tit for tat.

'I see your point, Tahr Kahhni. I look forward to working out what the order of things that we need to consider is, and will try to defer to your expertise and wisdom.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'And we will try to expedite things so that we don't take up too much of your valuable time, and will try to keep in mind that you have very short lives to lead compared to our own, so your time must be that much more valuable to you. We will try not to waste it.'

Andersson blinked, then looked at Kahmmhi carefully. 'You seem to speak English as your native language. Your tone, inflection, and control of the language is very precise and perfect.'

'All kids in the Clan grow up speaking Basic. All kids in households where there are Llyriana, or in Clans that are part Llyriana, also grow up speaking Llyriana as well. And we are encouraged to pick up other languages as we have the time and the inclination to learn them. We have a lot of the same words as what you call "English", but I can assure you that we have discovered that there are some serious contextual and cultural differences in their meanings in some instances.'

'Ah, that doesn't surprise me at all. Languages are constantly evolving and changing so long as they remain living languages that are in use for daily life. I notice that Virginia looks human, but you and your Shadows appear to be almost Vulcan.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'We are less related to Vulcans than we are to your species, Councillor. We have red blood, and we breed well with humans without any problems whatsoever. You have genes that are the same or similar to our own, but the correlation isn't all that high. And you definitely lack certain genes that we have from at least one of our ancestral races.'

'The Tryx.'

'Yes. That is the reason that our nanobots are lethal to your species. They specifically check for the presence of certain Tryx genes or the presence of certain genes that are similar enough to be considered either accessory genes or comparable in function, correct any defects in them, and enhance their expression. If you don't have the right genes, or enough of them, you don't survive the conversion process. Unfortunately, once the nanobots enter your body, there is no way to turn them off or stop the conversion process. They simply turn you into an Alpha, and you become like us, or they turn you into sludge as they destroy every cell in your body by actually disassembling it and breaking it down into its constituent components.'

Buckingham nodded. 'And what would happen if the Borg managed to acquire some of your nanobots and tried to use them to improve their own bodies?'

Janeway and every member of her crew blanched, but Kahmmhi just smiled. 'We were wondering that very same thing, so when we met the Borg during our travels in the Delta quadrant, we boarded one of their ships and captured a few of them so that we could study them. One of them tried to inject someone, and when I blocked it, it injected me with their nanobots.'

There were numerous gasps. 'You were infected with Borg nanobots? How difficult was it for you to be saved, and how many implants did they have to remove?'

'The infection lasted several hours, and there were no visible changes in my body during the course of the infection. Alpha bots actually break down Borg bots and use them for building materials, though they have to convert them to usable compounds, and that usually takes several hundred Borg bots to build one Alpha bot. Unfortunately, some of my blood entered the Borg drone when it tried to inject me with nanobots. It was not compatible with our nanobots, and couldn't be converted safely. And our nanobots especially seemed to find their artificial implants to be something that was to be eliminated as quickly as possible.'

Nobody said a word, since they were all thinking that she'd just explained what happened to you if the nanobots couldn't convert you to an Alpha. Just thinking about nanobots eating you alive and turning your entire body into a pile of sludge was very disconcerting to everyone there.

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Perhaps we should just take some time to discuss other topics, relax, and get to know each other better? I wouldn't want to ruin anyone's appetite when there is so much delicious food prepared and just waiting for us to consume it.'

Sisko nodded and led Kahmmhi over to the buffet, knowing that she was trying to avoid getting into anything that was serious at this initial meeting, especially since the Romulan and Klingon ambassadors hadn't even arrived yet. And talking about food did remind everyone that Clan members needed to eat much more than humans did. Though by now Sisko knew that she could go for several more hours without eating and still not have any kind of problems whatsoever. It did, however, make a very good excuse to use to keep things from getting too serious.

Kahmmhi spent the next few days avoiding the representatives from the Federation, though she did meet with some of them informally just to get to know their personalities better and to keep them calm while they were waiting for the representatives of the Klingon and Romulan empires to arrive. It wasn't all that difficult to find things to do, since she was interested in making sure that the construction on Bajor was done properly, and in overseeing the construction of the fleet of ships that were to be given to Bajor to provide them with their own independent fleet to use for system security.

When the ship with the Romulan and Klingon delegates finally entered the system, there was another formal reception aboard DS9 to welcome them to the system. This time, Kahmmhi made sure that Kyra and some other representatives of the Bajoran government were present so that there would be even more people there for the Alliance representatives to have to deal with. Since the other delegates had already learned about the gifts that the Clan was giving to the Bajorans, that should divert at least some of their attention.

Since there were many fewer introductions that actually involved her, Kahmmhi enjoyed this reception much more than the previous one. She greeted Ambassador Krang and K'ehlynn, the Klingon scientist, then met Ambassador Mek'Vihm and Tahl'mahn, the Romulan scientist. She was somewhat surprised that both of the scientists were female, and realized that the two empires were actually cooperating more than they had been when she left simply by who they had sent to represent their scientific interests. The Klingon scientist, K'ehlynn, was an expert on cloaking technology and the theoretical aspects of that field, in which the Klingons were ahead of the Romulans on both theoretical and practical application. The Romulan scientist, Tahl'mahn, was an expert in propulsion systems, both theoretical and practical. Both empires were about equal in that area, but the Romulans were slightly better at energy collection and utilization than the Klingons were.

'I see that some of our discussions involve the disposition of the crew of the Voyager. Is there some type of problem that they have with the Federation?'

Kahmmhi smiled at Mek'Vihm. 'We're not certain of that yet. The Federation hasn't actually made any official pronouncements or decisions regarding their intended treatment of certain individuals in the crew. Since we rescued them and brought them back here, they are under our protection and supervision until we are sure that they aren't in any danger.' She smiled cheerfully. 'I'd hate to think that they would be prosecuted for their actions in the past when the Federation intends to fully exploit all of the discoveries that they have made and developed while they were members of Voyager's crew. That hardly seems fair to me.'

Mek'Vihm nodded. 'I concur, Tahr Kahhni. But what is your solution to the problem if they can't come to an amicable arrangement that suits all parties?'

'Well, we'd probably just give StarFleet most of their personnel and keep the "experts" who developed all of the new technologies that the Federation seems to be so interested in acquiring. We would, of course, have to destroy Voyager, as well as all of the information that they had accumulated concerning technologies that we had previously, by treaty, agreed not to share with any members of the Alliance.'

Krang scowled. 'I think that we could come to some sort of arrangement that would preclude that necessity, Tahr Kahhni. Even if the Federation didn't want to come to some agreement regarding their intention to prosecute those people, the other members of the Alliance would be quite willing to give them asylum.'

'Unfortunately, that would create more problems than it would solve, ambassador. As I'm sure you're aware. Once you started to develop new technologies based on the discoveries that were made by those experts, you would either have to share them fully with the Federation or risk causing so much dissension and friction among the members of your Alliance that it would dissolve. That would spell the doom of all three of your cultures.'

Krang and Mek'Vihm both nodded, realizing that she was right about that.

Kahmmhi smiled as a thought struck her. 'I believe that I have a solution that may work, gentlemen. Give me some time to work out the details, and I will present what I come up with to all of you in a meeting tomorrow.'

Both of them nodded their agreement. 'Very well. We will await your presentation.'

As they moved off, Kahmmhi whispered something to Krohn in Llyriana. He nodded, and began issuing orders over the comm. It wouldn't take long for their archivists and historians to go through the records that they had collected during their first visit here and come up with the appropriate files. From what he had seen during his own time perusing the data, there should be enough there to convince all of the members of the Alliance that they were definitely facing an imminent threat to their current style of existence. If not, there was always plan B.

Sisko looked around the room, amazed that they had been able to fit everyone into the place that had been set aside for this one meeting. There was nothing normal about the meeting, including the extraordinarily large number of people who were scheduled to actually participate in it. If it had been any larger, their only options would have been to either hold the meetings on Bajor or to have them on board Kahmmhi's ship, since those were the only places with large enough meeting halls to accommodate so many people at one time and still maintain adequate security. While there were members of the press present, they were going to be discussing some highly classified information, so they didn't want to risk anyone without the proper security clearances being able to find out what was going on during the meetings.

All of the Federation representatives were sitting at one table, with their experts sitting at another table behind them. The three representatives and experts from the Klingon Empire were at one table, and those from the Romulan Empire were at another table. Colonel Kyra Nerys and several other representatives of the Bajoran government were present at their own table. There was a table with his staff sitting at it, with one seat open for him to join them. Another table held Captain Janeway and several members of her crew. Beside it was a table that was reserved for the Clan's attendees. It was the only empty table in the room.

Of course, there were three pairs of individuals standing at various points in the room. The journalists. They were filming this entire meeting from several different perspectives, and would share their individual footage with each other so that they all had everything to work with.

The door opened, and Sisko greeted Kahmmhi and led her to her seat before going to his own seat. Before sitting, he cleared his throat, causing the room to become totally quiet. 'All members are now present, and this first meeting is officially called to order. By the terms of the current agreement between the Clan and the members of the Alliance, I will preside over the proceedings and maintain order.'

Sisko sat, and the representative of the Federation rose. They had selected Ambassador Sanchez to be their spokesperson. 'I have read all of the information and material that has been provided to us, and I still fail to see exactly why this particular meeting even has to take place. Can you please explain your position to us so that we all understand your position, Tahr Kahhni?'

Kahmmhi rose and smiled sociably at her. 'Of course. While we were exploring the Delta quadrant, we came across a ship that was clearly of Federation origin. Since we had already agreed upon a nonaggression pact with the Federation and the other members of your Alliance, we identified ourselves, only to discover that the ship had no knowledge of us at all, and that they had been lost in the Delta quadrant for at least ten years. Once we discovered the reason for their current situation, we took it upon ourselves to rescue them and return them safely to the Alpha quadrant.'

'Yes. We all understand that. We commend you, and thank you very much for returning the ship and its crew to us.'

'Ah, but that is the major problem that we have. The ship and its crew probably wouldn't have arrived here safely, if at all, for at least another thirty or forty years, and possibly not for another sixty years or more. We could only bring the ship back because we helped them develop and install technology that we had already agreed was NOT going to be given to you by the Clan.'

'But THEY developed the technology themselves, so you weren't really giving it to us.'

'Technically, while they were members of Voyager's crew at the time, the individuals who actually made the necessary scientific discoveries, researched and developed ways to implement them safely, and constructed the actual technology that was required to utilize the discoveries at all were NOT members of the Federation. In fact, since they were originally members of the Maquis, and were operating in direct opposition TO the entire Federation government at the time of their departure from the Alpha quadrant, they would NOT have given you this technology willingly or done anything to share its benefits with you.'

'OK. What does that have to do with why we are here?'

'We want all of the members of Voyager's crew to be given complete and total immunity from all actions that they have taken in the past, with written guarantees that they will NEVER be prosecuted or mistreated by the Federation, the Alliance, or any of their representatives or members for any crimes, activities, or actions that they have taken prior to this date.'

'I'm not sure that we have the power to agree to something of that nature. Without knowing exactly what they may have done, or even why it was done, we can't...'

Ambassador Mek'Vihm stood. 'The Romulan Empire formally agrees to your request.'

Ambassador Krang stood immediately. 'The Klingon Empire formally agrees to your request.'

Councillor McNamara stood. 'This is highly unusual. We haven't even called for any discussion or a vote on the subject.'

'We do not need a discussion. Our empire wishes to acquire the technology that they have to offer so that we can improve the safety and security of the entire Alliance. We will NOT acquire that technology if the Federation insists upon prosecuting the very people who discovered that technology for "crimes" that they committed while they were rebelling against the Federation as part of an organized resistance to your government. Especially since they weren't technically even part of the Federation or under your jurisdiction at the time that the "crimes" that they were accused of were committed.'

McNamara looked at the others, then turned to face Kahmmhi. 'I don't understand. What is he talking about?'

'Most of the discoveries that were made, especially those that pertain to certain technologies that were restricted by our agreements with the Alliance, were made by three individuals. One is a former Maquis member, one was actually imprisoned by the Federation for crimes and released to Voyager specifically for the mission to try to capture the Maquis, and one is a former Borg. As such, StarFleet and the Federation have no real claim on any of them, their discoveries, or the benefits that their discoveries could provide to all members of the Alliance.'

'Very well. You are insisting upon conditions where they are guaranteed their freedom and compensation for their discoveries, as well as no future problems from any of their previous activities.'

'That is correct.'

'And if we insist upon prosecuting them, and with charging them for the crimes that they have committed in the past?'

'I will place them under Clan protection, take them to a safe location, and allow them to leave and live their own lives so far from the Federation that you will never be able to reach them within their lifetimes. And I will also destroy all knowledge of their discoveries so that the prior terms of our own agreements with the Alliance are fully honored. I've been assured that your own scientists should easily be able to discover roughly the same information within the next fifty years or so, and then you will be able to begin the cautious exploration of hyperspace and learn all about its hazards and pitfalls on your own. That should still be soon enough to keep your civilizations from being overrun by any of the aggressive civilizations that our own scouts have discovered in either the Gamma or the Delta quadrants during our explorations.'

'That hardly seems fair. You would be destroying one of our ships. And you'd have to keep us from using anything that any of the other crew members had learned during their time traveling in hyper to keep us from recreating their discoveries.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'The rest of the crew knows little or nothing of the details of how they did the modifications that made the use of their discoveries possible, and we did the fine tuning and upgrades on Voyager ourself, so they know nothing about how to do that properly. We know that you've already been researching and working on ways to discover how to use gravitic drives, so all that we're doing is keeping you from having a head start and having to learn how to overcome the pitfalls and dangers of that new technology on your own.'

The Federation representatives talked among themselves, then nodded. McNamara stood up. 'By the authority of the Federation Council, I swear that we will take no actions in the future for any activities, crimes, or actions that have been taken by any of Voyager's current crew members before this date. There will be no inquiries, tribunals, or courts.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Since that is the case, then we can move on to the next item on the agenda that we must discuss. I assume that you are all interested in learning as much as you can about the gravitic drives that Voyager had so that you can use them. Both for travel in real space at sublight speeds and for travel through hyperspace using the hyper streams.'

'Yes, we would like that very much.'

'Since I am now assured that there will be no actions taken against the crew of the Voyager, they are free to release to you any and all information that they have on the construction, maintenance, and operation of the gravitic engines that are in their ship. Your current technology is capable of reproducing them without any real problem at all, so you will be able to put them into any of your current ships or into any new ships that you construct.'

McNamara smiled. 'Thank you, Tahr Kahhni. I'm sure that our experts will want to spend a lot of time with them discussing the gravitic engines and the other modifications that were made to Voyager.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'Don't thank me yet, Councillor. While they can tell you many things and explain them to you so that you understand them and are able to start utilizing them with your technology, that won't magically solve all of your problems that are inherent with the technology.'

'I don't understand. If it works, what problems are there?'

'I would warn you of a few things that you might not have thought of yet. First, you do need to develop your science, your technology, and your defensive capabilities before certain civilizations can reach this quadrant and begin trying to add your systems to their own sphere of influence. We have found that there are a number of very advanced, aggressive species and civilizations in the Gamma quadrant, and they are all capable of space travel and warfare. Voyager has also found the same to be true in the Delta quadrant.'

Krang nodded. 'We believe in being prepared to fight, and we are going to increase the number of ships in our fleet as our resources allow. We also intend to phase out all of our smaller ships in favor of building more of the larger, more powerful ships that are strong enough to survive in actual combat.'

Kahmmhi sighed. That would help, and she knew that they meant well, but the Klingons and the Romulans would have to carry the load if the Federation didn't change their basic attitudes toward warfare and violence against other cultures that attacked them.

'You should know that while you can simply remove your current impulse engines and replace them with gravitic engines without causing any problems, there is still one problem that you haven't had to deal with before. You can use gravitic engines to travel at slightly higher speeds than impulse engines in real space, and they can also be used to travel through the hyper streams while you are in hyperspace.'

'Yes. We understand that.' Dr. Nakamura spoke up.

'The problem is that you don't have a working faster than light engine if you remove your warp engines. Your ships and materials aren't strong enough to build ships that are capable of surviving skipping through hyper while you're in real space or within a system. So you can't travel like we do when you're not in hyperspace, and you lack the ability to open hyper portals of your own at any location instead of just at the terminus of a naturally occurring hyper stream.'

The scientists didn't look very pleased with this information, but nobody else seemed to understand. Seven stood up.

'What she is trying to say is that you can't travel at warp if you don't have warp engines in your ship, and the only engines that the Clan has that are capable of faster than light travel are their hyper engines. We can use our own discoveries and current technology to enter hyperspace, but we can't build or use hyper engines. They would destroy our ships and kill the crews the very first time that we tried to use them.'

'So we keep our warp engines. What's the problem with that?'

'We can keep them without any problem. They will be very helpful to travel through systems at high speeds, and they will be very useful if we have to travel from a system with a hyper point to one that doesn't have one, but is located nearby in real space. But you can't use them while you are inside a hyper stream.'

'Why not?'

'Trying to generate a warp field within the confines of a hyper stream could cause the stream to collapse, and the walls of the stream could be trapped inside the warp bubble with the ship. The walls of a hyper stream are lined with vast amounts of pure antimatter.'

The scientists all gasped as they realized how dangerous that could be. One small failure of a shield around your ship and there wouldn't be anything left of the ship. It would be torn apart in hyperspace by the resulting antimatter explosions, and what was left of it would be vaporized as soon as it made any contact with the remaining antimatter that was left in the area. One mistake, and there would be nothing left to prove that the ship had ever even existed.

Kahmmhi smiled. 'I see that your experts now understand the problem. I'll allow them to explain it to you later, when the information won't interfere with your ability to continue the current discussion.'

The others nodded. Kahmmhi sighed. 'We have agreed to give you the technology to make sure that your ships are capable of the same stealth that Voyager currently has. That will allow you to keep any potential enemies from detecting your ships, and allow you to explore peacefully in relative safety. I would recommend that you do your explorations with at least some consideration toward evaluating potential threats to your current civilization and culture. Take your time and get to know your neighbors before you go over and introduce yourselves.'

Sanchez smiled. 'That shouldn't be a problem. We have often used our superior technology to study other cultures without their knowledge, making sure that we didn't interfere with their development and allowing them to mature and develop at their own pace.'

'You may not have thought of it yet, but since you are going to be able to develop gravitic engines of your own, you will eventually be capable of taking that knowledge and using it to develop your own railgun capabilities on the ships that you have that are large enough. About the only ships that we think you can do that with at first are the battleships, and possibly the troop transports, though it would take a lot of work to completely rework the core of the ship well enough to put in railgun assemblies. Once you have the system worked out, you might be able to make them powerful enough for the battle frigates to also have railguns that were powerful enough to be worth putting them into your ships.'

Krang smiled, and so did Mek'Vihm. Both of them were well aware of the potential that would give their ships. Railguns could obliterate Borg ships simply by the kinetics if they were that powerful, even with full shields doing their best to try to stop the round and minimize the damage.

'Now, I have agreed to provide some further assistance to Bajor, which is why they are here. They are not a member of the Federation, and they are not members of the Alliance, so we are treating with them as a small, independent, neutral third party.'

'What type of assistance are they going to be given?'

Kahmmhi ignored the snicker from Krohn at hearing that question immediately come from Thompson, the spook. 'We have agreed to build more cities for them so that more of their population can live in housing similar to the detention centers that we built to house the captured Dominion troops after the battle that was fought here during the war against the Dominion.'

Kahmmhi had to ignore the snickers from all four of her Shadows at her reference to the battle that had been fought here as a war against the Dominion. She knew that, by Clan standards, it had been a relatively small and very brief skirmish. 'We have also agreed to supply them with specially built small craft that they can use to patrol their system. Some of them will be set up as gunships and troop transports so that they have their own small navy of small craft, some will be set up for carrying personnel and doing other types of duty similar to courier ships, and some will be set up to do heavy work such as harvesting antimatter from hyperspace, mining minerals from space, and carrying cargo. They won't have warp engines, but they will be capable of traveling through hyper and they will have gravitic engines that can move them through real space.'

'Do you have any idea how capable those craft would be compared to anything that we could make on our own from the information that we're to receive from Voyager's crew?'

'About the same. We're just building them the same way that we would have built the shuttles for Voyager if we'd had to build them from scratch rather than rebuilding them. They will probably be slightly faster because their hull is purpose built and will handle the stresses better, so they can push the gravitics slightly harder than your current rebuilt shuttles can. Maybe five light seconds per hour. And with the extra engines and power sources that we typically build in, their lasers will be more powerful than those on the shuttles. They're still small craft, but they will be much larger than the shuttles are.'

'How large are they?'

'We're intending for them to be the size of a HAT. Ninety meters long, twenty meters wide, and about ten meters tall. Three decks. Heavily armored, heavily reinforced structurally because we'll be using materials that you could manufacture, so they have to be designed to deal with the stresses of flight simply because you don't use inertial compensators that function like ours do. But they can hold enough engines, power sources, and redundant life support and other systems to make them capable of doing what we intend them to be capable of doing.'

'Which is?'

'Allowing the Bajorans to use them as gunboats to patrol their own system and stop and board any suspicious ships that might be either dangerous or carrying contraband. Customs ships, a self defense force, ships capable of stopping and boarding any potentially dangerous ships that enter the system. We'll train volunteers and make sure that they can use the ships before we leave the system.'

'How large a fleet are we talking about?'

'I haven't really had a chance to discuss that with the Bajorans to work out all of the details, but probably somewhere between a total of six to twelve dozen ships to start. They will be able to use them to gather enough antimatter to supply the needs of their planet, though the systems that we're putting in for the majority of their current population should allow them to build similar dwellings for all of the remaining Bajorans who don't live in the cities, and then their energy consumption should actually decrease over time. Our buildings are rather energy efficient.'

Krang smiled. 'We look forward to having the Bajorans helping to patrol and protect their own system. That will allow us to focus our attentions on defending the wormhole and making sure that this system isn't invaded. They can catch any smugglers who come into the system and punish them according to their own laws.'

'We seem to have already gone over the majority of the most important things that we were to discuss.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'It will take a lot of time to work out all of the details to everyone's satisfaction, but time is something that we have. However, I do have one suggestion that will help give all of you a very good idea of exactly what I'm talking about when I tell you that there are aggressive, dangerous cultures all around you, and that they will eventually work their way toward your location in space. IF they don't develop the ability to use hyperspace.'

'What do you mean?'

'It could take centuries for the nearest civilizations that we discovered in the Gamma quadrant to work their way to where they were contacting your farthest outposts and learning of your existence. Though they could also learn of your existence by your communications, since messages do tend to keep going through space at the speed of light.'

Everyone nodded, realizing that she wasn't saying anything new or unknown. 'However, IF they learn how to travel through hyperspace, the actual time to travel from here to there is just a few months. We didn't have time to do any long range exploration while we were here, and we were limited as to just how far our recon craft could go without having to risk setting down on an alien planet to purge their onboard systems and recharge their life support capacity.'

Kahmmhi looked around the room. 'I could offer to take you to some of those systems and show you what we were talking about, but that would require months of travel, and it's not worth the time and effort that would be required. However, I can show you the vids that our recon patrols took that show various cultures that they ran into during their travels, and what they were able to gather from the signals that they were able to intercept and evaluate.'

'We would be very interested in doing that, Tahr Kahhni. Please, bring the videos here and show us whatever it is that you want us to see.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'I would prefer to take you to my ship and show you there, Councillor.'

Sanchez nodded. 'Very well. Are there any objections?'

Nobody objected. Kahmmhi smiled. 'If you'll all follow me to my shuttle, we can all go over to my ship. We can have lunch, and then spend the afternoon allowing you to view the records that we have of that exploration.'

Sisko smiled, realizing that it was getting to be lunchtime already, and he knew that the Clan always ate when they could if they weren't in combat.

'It's almost time for lunch now. Shouldn't we eat before we go to your ship? We can't use the transporters to beam over there, so it could take a while to get there.' Ambassador Williams was also aware that the Clan ate a lot, and that they ate often when they weren't in combat. He had done his homework on the long trip out to DS9 to meet with Kahmmhi and resolve this matter.

'Once we reach the airlock where my ship is docked, it will take about one minute to reach our ship.' Kahmmhi smiled sweetly. 'Unlike the ships that we build for you, our own small craft are capable of skipping across the system through hyperspace by doing microjumps, so we can cover the distance in a few short skips without stressing our own inertial compensators at all.'

McNamara nodded, looking thoughtful. 'I was wondering about that. Why does the Clan stress the need to do such maneuvers when they have to be much more dangerous than simply flying from one point to another? You are always talking about how time isn't that important, but you insist upon being able to move around in real space in ways that have to be extremely dangerous if anything at all goes wrong.'

'Our enemy can't see our ships, but they can see our lasers when we fire them. So we fire our lasers at them, then immediately microjump to another position so that their return fire can't possibly hit us. That is standard tactics for all of the Clans. And since the jumps are randomly executed, the enemy can't possibly predict them and fire at where our ship should be. They have to rely on firing blindly at us and hoping that they hit us, and most of our ships are so heavily shielded and so heavily armored that even hitting us doesn't really damage our ships very often.'

'I understand that, and it makes sense. But isn't it still more dangerous to do that when you're not in combat and you don't absolutely HAVE to do things like that?'

'Not really. We do very meticulous maintenance on all of our craft all of the time. The crews carry replacement parts, and can even use the onboard synthesizers to make new parts for many things on their ship. And we have redundant systems, so it's very unlikely that enough compensators are going to fail at the same time to actually destroy the ship or kill everyone on board the ship.'

Everyone nodded, and Sisko adjourned the meeting. They all filed out of the meeting room, following Kahmmhi to the docking ring and her waiting shuttle.

When they arrived at the docking ring, everyone was disconcerted when they saw an airlock with its door wide open and absolutely nothing on the other side. Kahmmhi smiled at their reactions. 'Sorry. We know that it's kind of weird for you because you can't see the shuttle when it's stealthed, but unless it's necessary, we always have stealth systems running on all of our ships. It's been more than a century since our last fighters that didn't have stealth were even in use.'

Andersson smiled and nodded. 'I understand. We knew this logically, but it's quite something else to actually see it in person and realize that we really can't see anything at all where your ship is. I can actually see space through an open airlock, and the indicators show that there isn't a force field in place. Amazing.'

'While the systems that we're going to help you learn to build and maintain aren't quite as good as our own stealth is, it will be good enough that you will get the same effect. You won't be able to see the ship, and you won't be able to detect it with any of your current instrumentation. Voyager can detect our ships with their sensors, but we had to improve them and tweak their performance for their own safety while they were traveling through hyper with us. There are things in hyperspace that your sensors don't detect well, and they can be dangerous if you hit them.'

McNamara nodded. 'Uh, yeah. Hyperspace is full of antimatter. That could be bad if you hit it.'

They boarded the shuttle, and most of the diplomats were surprised to see two full platoons of Clan Raiders on board in full combat armor. Admiral Thompson was very nervous at being around them.

'That is a lot of troops, and they are very heavily armed.'

'That is two platoons, which is the standard loadout for a HAT, and they are actually carrying standard combat loads.' Kahmmhi smiled. 'Councillors, ambassadors, I would like to introduce my brother, Max.'

A giant figure in black armor stepped forward and greeted them. He was huge, imposing, and while he was cordial and polite, he was not exactly friendly or warm to them. The reporters were trying to think of something to say or ask him while their cameramen were busy filming and getting good shots of the huge Clan warrior. Now THAT was imposing.

'Uh, I noticed that everyone else wears different armor than your Shadows do.' Marlena Hargrave finally thought of something interesting to ask.

Kahmmhi pursed her lips. 'My Shadows are actually still members of my grandfather's Clan, and they wear the armor of their Clan, with the proper insignia to designate their position. They are Kahrr Soorhni.'

'And what does that mean?' Roy Buckingham jumped into the fray with a question of his own. There had been some material about Kahmmhi and her Shadows in the briefing that they had been given, but much of it was sort of vague and didn't make a lot of sense.

Max smiled, and when he spoke, his voice was deep, booming, and commanding. 'Literally translated into Basic, it means "Blood Sworn" or "Blood Oath". They took a blood oath to Kohl-garh himself to protect his granddaughter.'

'For how long?'

'For as long as she's alive and they still live. They will die to protect her, if necessary, but their real purpose is to get her out of danger and kill anything that threatens her while doing that. They just get her out of the way of real dangers. My platoon and the others are here to make sure that whatever they're trying to get her away from doesn't try to follow her and finish the job.' Max smiled like a predator. 'We get to kill whatever attacks her if the threat is great enough that they need to remove her from it instead of handling it on the spot on their own.'

'But surely StarFleet security is capable of handling any threats to her person. She's been accorded diplomatic status, and we insure the security of all diplomats while they are in Federation space or on Federation property.'

Max's smile was not pleasant. 'No offense, but your security personnel couldn't handle Kryl'ghai, and they're second rate troops who are only fit for basic security functions and controlling crowds of unarmed slaves at best.'

Worf chuckled. 'After having seen Clan troops in combat, most of the security personnel on DS9 have really intensified their training, but they realize that we can't even begin to compete with Clan troops physically, and we don't have the weapons to be dangerous to them or their enemies. Their technology and armor are simply more than we can handle.'

The ambassadors nodded, and the Federation representatives noted that even Krang didn't take offense at the less than flattering comparison between Klingons and the Clan. When even the Klingons knew that they were hopelessly outclassed and outmatched by the Clan, it was hard to take what they said personally, even if it had been said in a less than flattering way. Of course, they did remember that the Clan really didn't believe in diplomacy as a normal thing, and that Clan members were very honest in their assessments of others, especially when it came to their skills with weapons or in combat. Especially the warriors.

Max went over and opened the door to the shuttle, and everyone was surprised to see that they were already inside a huge landing bay that was filled with large, imposing shuttles that were several stories tall and several hundred feet long.

'Wow, would you look at the size of that thing? What in the world is that?'

Max looked at Fitzsimmons and rolled his eyes. 'Another HAT. Similar to the one that you're on, though the armor on this one is better than that of a normal HAT.' He smiled. 'The Clan takes no chances with the life of the Tahr Kahhni.'

Buckingham nodded. 'Can you tell me how this shuttle differs from the others?'

Max smiled, and Worf cringed slightly, recognizing the expression. This was going to be bad. Very, very bad.

'Well, technically, this is not a shuttle. This is a HAT. A heavy assault transport. In the Clan, shuttles are used to transport troops, and the only shuttles that we really use are either strike assault shuttles or heavy strike assault shuttles.'

'What's the difference?'

Worf looked down at the deck, realizing that the reporter had not bothered to read what had been declassified about Clan craft, and had actually taken the bait. He saw that Sisko, Krang, and some of the Romulans were also trying not to react visibly to what was going on. They all knew what was coming, just like he did.

'Well, in the Clan, a strike assault shuttle is designed to ram an enemy ship, penetrate one hundred meters or more of hull armor, and deliver its troops into the interior of the ship so that we can board without warning and board anywhere on the ship so that the enemy can't impede our entry into the ship. It has some weapons, and can give some limited fire support to the combat troops that it delivers to the interior of the enemy ship.'

Max smiled. 'A heavy assault transport is designed as a general all purpose support craft for various types of operations against enemy forces in a combat zone. Without going into all of the details of what each type of craft is capable of doing, the HAT is larger, faster, has fifty percent more armor, and has more and heavier weapons than a strike assault shuttle does.'

Fitzsimmons leaned in anxiously. 'What type of "heavy weapons" does a ship like this have? I'm looking at them, and I don't see any weapons at all.'

Worf bit off a growl of contempt, then bit off another growl of displeasure at the tone that the reporter was using. His emphasis obviously implied that a ship this small couldn't possibly have any weapons or firepower that would qualify as heavy weapons by anyone's definition of the term.

'All weapons on the transports and shuttles that the Clan uses retract into the ship so that the ship can protect them during certain types of maneuvers or operations. The weapons that this ship has that a shuttle doesn't would include twin torpedo tubes fore and aft that fire AM mines, a retractable twin 100 mm RG turret in both the upper and lower decks, and retractable upper and lower laser turrets.'

'I don't understand. You call those heavy weapons, but they don't sound all that different from our own weapons systems, and small craft might have phasers or lasers or whatever you use, but they're just not able to generate enough power to make them very effective in combat compared to the lasers on a large ship.'

'The AM mines that this ship fires are capable of generating explosions equivalent to the energy released by the destruction of a reactor core of one of your starships. Possibly even larger, depending on the load that we put into them, though I'm not sure about how powerful the explosions of your warp cores are. The RG turrets could damage anything that your fleet has if their shields weren't working, and if they are firing AM rounds, they could wear down your shields as well. The laser mounts aren't as powerful as the spinal lasers on a strike assault shuttle, but they are capable of rotating around and taking out small craft or lightly armored ships. The spinal lasers on a HAT are much more powerful than those on the smaller strike assault shuttles, and are capable of damaging the shields on even the ships that we gave to you after the war against the Dominion, and could even damage the armor that is currently on those ships.'

Fitzsimmons shrugged nonchalantly. 'That is all well and good, but how much of a threat could such small craft possibly pose to your enemies? It would take huge numbers of them to make an effective attack, especially if your enemy has the technology, the fleets, and ships the size that you say they do. And you certainly can't have unlimited numbers of the antimatter mines that you use.'

Max smiled. 'You are correct that we don't have unlimited numbers of the mines. This ship only carries one hundred of them. As I said, this type of ship is a general, all purpose small craft. PT boats are typically used to put out minefields to destroy enemy ships and deter small craft. They generally carry several hundred mines and launch them in salvos of up to a dozen mines at a time. They can leave a stationary minefield or a moving minefield that moves at up to seven light seconds per hour. Seven and a half if we use heavy PT boats because they are not only faster, but they carry twice as many mines.'

'That's all well and good, but how many mines could you possibly launch?'

'Millions at one time before we'd have to reload.' Max smiled at Fitzsimmons' shocked expression. 'The interior of every hyper stream is heavily lined with antimatter, and we routinely collect it as we travel from system to system. We use it for energy, use it to make mines, and use it for ammunition for our railguns and small arms. Generally, even a small Clan such as ours uses AM in quantities that you refer to as "metric tons".'

Everyone stood there without comment, since that was a vast amount of antimatter for ANYONE to use. Their expressions, even those of the individuals who had dealt with the Clan before, changed to one of utter disbelief and horror when Max added, 'Of course, that is how much a typical Clan uses in a week, though there are times when we use much more antimatter if we're actively engaging in combat with a lot of enemy fleets or targeting enemy systems. It takes a lot to mine a hyper point and deny the enemy free access to a system.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Of course, really large Clans, such as Clan Kwyll Kohltahng and Clan Kahrrha Kwyll, and especially Clan Phoenix, use much more antimatter because they are constantly waging war against the enemy and engaging in battles that would require much more time for the other Clans to recover and rebuild. Their fleets have more ships than ours and their ships are much larger than ours on average as well. The last time that I heard, my grandfather's fleet was about five times as large as ours if you're counting the number of ships, but if you're counting the size, it's orders of magnitude larger and more powerful.'

That single statement stunned all of the reporters and all of the delegates who hadn't dealt with the Clans before. For those who had dealt with the Clan and already had some idea of what Kahmmhi was talking about, her comment wasn't any surprise at all.

They walked down the ramp and were met by Virginia. 'Welcome aboard the Rolling Thunder.'

Roy Buckingham smiled. 'That is a very descriptive name for a ship that never leaves space. Especially for a culture that lives in space, where there can never be any sound associated with your weapons going off.'

Virginia laughed softly. 'Yes. Well, the eldest among the Clans were born on rocks, and since they're still alive and making sure that we learn about our roots, they do still continue to influence our culture.'

Virginia led Kahmmhi and the others to a large room where there were lots of very comfortable looking seats. Each one had its own small table attached to one side, and there was a comp built into the table. There were also several synthesizers there so that everyone could eat. Since that was what they had come here to do first, everyone got something to eat while they sat there and relaxed.

After the meal was finished, Kahmmhi smiled and stood to address all of the delegates. 'OK. I promised you that I would show you what you could expect to find once you begin exploring hyperspace on your own. We will be giving you the hyper maps that we have compiled from our time in both the Alpha quadrant and the Delta quadrant. I would warn you that you might want to be very careful in your explorations, since contact and interactions with some of the species or cultures that we've discovered could lead to problems between your cultures and theirs.'

Ambassador Williams looked at her curiously. 'That's what diplomacy is for. To resolve certain issues peacefully so that we can coexist and we don't have to go to war. A new culture may have different beliefs than ours does, but with time and effort, we can learn to adapt, to allow for differences, and to get along peacefully. I'm sure that if your Clans actually tried to expend more effort on talking with your enemy, the Consortium would eventually go ahead and make peace with you and learn to coexist.'

Max laughed. 'Oh, what I wouldn't give to have a live Grak for this idiot to talk to and try to convince him that things could be settled peacefully. Watching him piss the Grak off would be almost as entertaining as watching the Grak make a trophy out of the little bitch.'

Kahmmhi snapped her head around, looking horrified, and her own scream came in stereo with that of Fleur, Max's wife. 'MAX!' Neither of them wanted Max intensifying the images in their minds of exactly what that would be like, or how it would affect the other Federation representatives when they saw what was happening.

Virginia just chuckled, and Kahmmhi became embarrassed when she heard her Shadows snickering. 'What is so kraghlar funny? That comment was definitely NOT polite.'

'Your grandfather would have said the same thing if Lehr hadn't beaten him to it. Max spent way too much time training with them. Most of his advanced training was done as part of the squad that accompanied your father and Troy into combat for their advanced training. Fleur was the sniper that Troy was training personally, and that's where the two of them met and got married.'

Kahmmhi looked at her brother and his wife, then shut up. Their expression said it all. Everything that Krohn had just said was true. 'Very well. I'm not stupid enough to try to discourage behavior that my grandfather thinks is either required for combat or enhances the survivability of the individual in combat. Nobody survives combat like grandpa does.'

Virginia smiled, deciding to get the meeting back on track. 'Kahm, the vids?'

'Right. Sorry. The first set of vids is from the edges of the Alpha quadrant that are adjacent to the Gamma quadrant. We initially thought that it was in the Gamma quadrant, but stellar cartography finally pinpointed the location, and comparing it to the maps that you gave us, it is still technically in the Alpha quadrant.'

A huge screen came on along one entire wall, and everyone watched intently as it displayed a clearly thriving civilization that was also clearly capable of interstellar flight. The vids were narrated by someone who was going over what they could detect clearly and precisely. It only took a few moments for them to realize that whoever was doing the talking was clearly evaluating a potential military threat.

'Several hundred ships inside this one system. Hacks into their comp networks have yielded intel on the size and extent of their empire. About fifty systems, all connected geographically in space. Empty systems between the habitable systems are being used for resources, but they aren't trying to make the other rocks habitable by doing any terraforming. We have no idea how many of their systems contain hyper points, since none of their records indicate that they even know that hyper exists. No idea of their total manpower or fleet strength, but this is a small system, even if it isn't on the periphery of their sphere of influence.'

'Their ships are much larger, stronger, and more heavily armed and armored than the ships that we've seen at DS9. Most of them are comparable to the ships that we followed from the Delta quadrant, though there are some that are even larger and stronger than that. Materials used for construction are about equivalent to what we know of that of the Federation and their allies, and their tech level seems to be largely comparable.'

'They seem to have been engaged in warfare against some of their neighbors in the recent past, and their records indicate that this is not the first interstellar war that they have participated in. They've won some, and they've even lost territory in some of their earlier encounters. Most of that territory was regained and reclaimed after their enemy was finally defeated by another stellar empire. Since neither remaining empire was in a good position to contest their claim, they had time to consolidate their territory, and have held onto it ever since. They appear to be much better at defensive fighting than offensive capabilities, but their offensive capabilities aren't all that bad, either.'

A picture of a large, ugly, imposing alien appeared on the screen. 'This is one of their warriors, who are all genetically enhanced to make them stronger, faster, and more aggressive than the average citizen. We don't have firsthand access to any information about their physiology, anatomy, or other characteristics, but their records seem to indicate that they are about as strong as a Beta.'

'Their technology level is about the same as that of the Federation and their allies. They use something that appears to be similar to warp, but which works on different principles and allows them to travel through some type of space that is linked to this dimension, but it isn't subspace or hyperspace. They have limited use of antimatter, and limited understanding of how to control and contain it properly. They use some type of quantum reactor for energy generation, travel through real space at about three light seconds per hour, and have limited abilities when it comes to dealing with both inertia and gravity. Their most powerful weapons are some type of proton beams.'

Kahmmhi smiled at her audience. 'If you have any questions, we can give you more information on this system and the species that inhabits it.'

'What are they called?'

'They seem to call themselves "Knarb". We have no information about their language, so we don't know what it means.'

Virginia brought up the next set of vids.

'We are in system forty seven, and we're going to have to hustle to make our recall date. We only have time for a very short study of this system. That is really too bad, because this system looks very interesting. It's the most technologically advanced system that we've found, and our initial results seem to indicate that it's in the heart of the Gamma quadrant.'

'There are six fleets inside this system, and each one contains several hundred ships. Mass indications are that they could form the equivalent of a patrol fleet for the Consortium, which makes this the largest military force that we have discovered since our arrival here.' The camera moved to show the person who was talking. 'Gary says that the hack we managed to get indicates that they are part of a larger culture, and that they are about average for the seven hundred and eighty three systems that comprise that empire.'

There was a pause, and then the vid resumed.

'We've spent an extra week studying this system, since we thought that it was so important. We'll have to push the limits on transit times to get back on time, but Megan thinks that it's worth the risk. We've already sent a message back to Virginia, but with the transit times between systems, any reply won't arrive for at least two or three more days. We are WAY out in the kraghlar boonies here compared to where we were when we started.'

'Anyway, the stay was definitely worthwhile. The "Javorkis" are a very aggressive, xenophobic, and territorial race. As they expand, they either enslave or kill every other species that they encounter. Their ships are, on average, fifty to sixty times larger than the largest ships that we saw before leaving DS9. They use about two hundred meters of layered, composite armor on their hulls, and they use something equivalent to warp for faster than light travel. Their ships are capable of traveling at about six light seconds per hour on a mixture of rocket engines and some type of ion propulsion. Their braking is very good, and they do have some type of inertial compensators, though they are limited in their effectiveness.'

'The Javorkis use antiproton beams, something that appears to be a cross between phasers and disruptors, and hypervelocity missiles. Their larger ships are carriers, and they seem to have a large number of small attack craft on each carrier. So far, we haven't found anything to indicate that they are capable of developing either gravitics or hyper travel, but they do have railguns in their largest ships. They use methods similar to those that the Consortium does to generate velocity in their railguns, so the acceleration curve is at least an order of magnitude lower than it would be for Clan railguns. This means that their effects are limited against proper energy shields and armor, and that the largest railguns that we know about would be equivalent in power to those on a Grak battlecruiser at best, and possibly limited to that of an old Clan strike cruiser.'

None of the Alliance representatives knew what kind of power levels that would correlate to, but they saw that the Clan members appeared to show either disdain or disgust at the power levels and level of threat that the railguns that were being described posed, so they relaxed somewhat.

'We have watched several training exercises during the time that we've been here, and their small craft use a mixture of railguns, hypervelocity missiles, and lasers. They are very good, given their limited technology, and they have the numbers to overwhelm their opposition by sheer numbers when they choose to expand their empire. They are currently in a phase of expansion, and most of their planets are going to lose half of their population to start new colonies in recently acquired systems as they are added to the empire.'

Kahmmhi stopped the vids, and the lights came on. 'There are records of at least six or seven other cultures that are in the Gamma quadrant. We also have lots of information on about four cultures in the Delta quadrant, and several other cultures that we haven't found in the records that you gave us, but who are still in the Alpha quadrant.'

'Just how much exploration did your scouts do while you were here the first time?'

'Not a lot, really. They did find hyper links to both Vulcan and Earth. I think that it's about three or four weeks to either of them if you don't stop to explore the systems in between.'

Admiral Thompson said quietly, 'If it's possible, we'd like to get copies of as much of the material that you saved during your exploration as possible. If these empires are as large, as strong, and as aggressive as you indicate, we need to prepare for them and whoever they might be going to war against if we want to make sure that our own culture and civilization survive our first encounters with them.'

'Of course, Admiral. Our entire purpose for showing you people this material was to make sure that we warned you about some of the potential dangers that you could be facing very shortly if you don't prepare yourselves for the inevitable first contact with some of the more dangerous species that inhabit other parts of your galaxy.'

Councillor Andersson nodded. 'You've certainly succeeded admirably in achieving that goal, Kahmmhi. What else can you tell us about those groups, and the others that you considered dangerous enough to bother warning us about?'

'They are all fairly advanced scientifically, they are all extremely aggressive and territorial, and they all have a history of enslaving or killing every culture that they meet that they CAN enslave or kill.' Kahmmhi smiled. 'We basically evaluated all of them as potential threats to the Clan. And while none of them were considered to be capable of becoming a threat to the Clans in the foreseeable future, all of them have the potential to become a threat to your existence.'

Krang nodded, then stood. 'If I may, there is one question that I must ask.'

Kahmmhi nodded, listening to him intently.

'If the Clan is worried about humanity, and does their best to destroy those who are a threat to humanity, why are you helping us? I mean, giving us the technology and information to motivate us to prepare for the potential of open warfare against these cultures is the same as encouraging us to go to war with them. So why are you helping us and not them?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'That is a very good question, Krang. And the answer is simple. We've met you, and we like you. When you don't need to, you aren't so aggressive that you fight a war to the bitter end, hunting down and killing your defeated enemies. In fact, your allies in your current Alliance were once your bitter enemies, but you have banded together to fight against a threat to your collective existence, allying against a common threat. None of the civilizations that we have found yet inside the Gamma quadrant has ever done that, and there have been numerous times when any one of them could have. By the time that you finally run into this common threat, you will have formed a cohesive society that encompasses all three of your current cultures, and you will be united well enough to remain together once that threat has been eliminated. All of your races will be part of your humanity, and with a gene pool that broad and diverse, you should be able to grow, adapt, and evolve. Given enough time for you to do so, of course. We are simply giving you the materials, technology, and motivation to allow you to buy yourselves that time if you are willing to do what it takes to survive.'

Krang nodded, then sat down.

Kahmmhi smiled. 'If you would like, we can hold any meetings that you wish on board this ship, and we can even provide accommodations for anyone who wishes to spend time on board our ship while these negotiations are going on.'

Marlena Hargrave and Roy Buckingham both stepped forward immediately. 'If you don't mind, we would very much like to accept that offer for at least part of our time here.'

'That will not be a problem. However, we should warn you that if you remain here, you will have to bunk in at least pairs to keep warm at night. Clan ships get very cold at night while we are doing recycling and reclamation on energy. You will either have to share a bed with your assistants, or work out arrangements that are amenable to all parties involved.'

Marlena nodded. 'I can bunk with Sara without any problem. We're not competing for a story here, so we don't have to worry about talking things over with each other.'

Roy nodded. 'That's OK with me if it's OK with Sara.'

Angela Richards stepped forward. 'I would also like to stay. I can either bunk with them, or with another of the females who accepts your offer.'

It took several minutes for everyone else to make a decision, but in the end, all of them elected to spend at least a week on board the Clan ship in order to save time. The only people who were going to return to DS9 were Sisko and his staff, and they would come to the ship any day that they were needed in the meetings.

In the end, Councillor McNamara and Ambassador Sanchez were going to share a room, with Councillor Andersson and Ambassador Williams bunking in another next to them. Ambassador Krang and Ambassador Mek'Vihm were roommates, as were Dr. Michaelson and Dr. Koryll. Dr. Nakamura was going to share a room with the other two scientists, K'ehlynn and Tahl'mahn. The last pair of reporters would share a room together as well.

Janeway was going to remain on board, and would bunk with Seven and B'elana. Tom Paris and Tuvok would share the room next to them. Kyra and the representatives of Bajor would remain on DS9 except for the days in which they were required to attend the meetings. Most of their meetings simply involved talking with various Clan experts by themselves, since Kahmmhi was treating all of her meetings and dealings with Bajor as if they were completely independent of her dealings with the Alliance.

They broke up this meeting early so that everyone would have time to be taken to their new quarters, be shown how to operate everything, how to communicate with the Clan members who had been assigned to help them, and given time to get settled in for the night. They still had to eat dinner, and Kahmmhi hoped that they'd use the nearby mess hall so that they not only got to meet together more informally, but they would be given additional opportunities to meet and get to know some of the Clan members who also ate there normally. She couldn't help but think that this was probably a risky situation, but it really would help the Alliance if they had even better technology and a good, swift kick in the ass to motivate them to become more willing to use force to defend themselves. Using it as a last resort was all well and good, but that demanded that you already had taken the time to prepare in advance so that when it came time for that last resort, it wasn't simply some desperation move, and was something that had a realistic chance of working to save your race from total destruction. She couldn't believe that the Federation hadn't learned that lesson after Wolf 359, when the Borg had almost totally destroyed the entire Federation fleet before they had finally destroyed the single Borg cube that had been sent to assimilate them. If that had happened to a Clan and their leaders refused to try to improve their fleet when they had the resources available to do so, they would have been removed or killed and then replaced with someone who could do the job properly. And nobody in the Clans would have mourned their passing. Not even their own wives or families.

Kahmmhi went to get something to eat, knowing that she should eat before Lyhssyha began giving her grief. Tomorrow would be another long, boring day. And then, after the day of rest, she had to meet with the Bajoran representatives to go over the initial plans for the construction sites and the size of the complexes that the Clan had to build for them. They also had to go over the details for the new fleet of ships that were going to be constructed, and the Bajorans would have to start recruiting volunteers for the Clan to test and eventually train to serve as the crews for those craft. They were finally about to build the first ships in the Bajoran Navy.

Even the Federation politicians were worn out after the long, drawn out discussions of the second day. They'd already learned exactly how cold a Clan ship was at night, and all of them were wondering why in the world the Clans wouldn't fix something that was so simple to regulate as the temperature of their ships at night. With all of the antimatter that they had lying around that they could use to generate energy, it didn't make any sense.

After a discussion among themselves, they still weren't sure why the problem still existed, so Dr. Nakamura posed the question to Kahmmhi while they were relaxing in the recreation area on the Clan day of rest.

'Well, part of it is tradition, and part of it is simply because that's how we make our own systems so much more efficient than anything that you have. We recycle everything, including the waste energy in various parts of the ship. Doing that requires us to cool parts of the ship off periodically, so we do it at night when everyone in that section is sleeping and can remain warm under covers. Besides, it makes us appreciate the energy that is used to keep us warm, and helps to keep us strong and healthy.'

Krohn chuckled. 'It also helps those who have injuries regulate their body temperatures, since accelerated activity from the nanobots when they're healing injuries raises your body temperature dramatically. The cool air keeps them from overheating when they're sleeping, since that's when the nanobots are typically most active in their efforts to repair their bodies and make improvements.'

Nakamura nodded, realizing that the Clan simply considered it an unnecessary waste of resources, and seeing how efficient their systems were, she had to agree with them.

Virginia smiled. 'Enough talk about technology and other things. Today is rest day, so you're supposed to have fun, relax, and unwind. Even Kohl-garh observes the day of rest whenever he can, and only true emergencies and combat interrupt his time with his family on that day.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'I'm very well aware that grandpa spent time with the family when he could, and that the day of rest was almost always observed. I still remember growing up seeing him almost every week.'

'Yeah. He always did spoil you.'

Kahmmhi stuck her tongue out as she turned around and faced Max. 'Yeah? I got to see him ONE day a week and spend some time with him sometimes. He kept you around him almost all of the time, and you're technically not even one of his grandkids.'

Max chuckled. 'Yeah. We did have a blast. Training, drills, exercises, and then combat. Then we do the stuff that we need to with whatever we either captured or destroyed, move on, and resume training and combat sims. Lots of fun. Ah, those were the days. Fleur even got to kill lots of things, so she was a really happy camper. Just as long as she didn't have to miss out on combat because of pregnancy and weaning babies.'

Fleur smiled as she held the four year old child that they'd had while they were in the Delta quadrant. 'Hey, I haven't been giving you grief about knocking me up while we're here, have I?'

Max shook his head. 'That doesn't count. Here, we KNOW that we're not really going to be doing any fighting that qualifies as more than a skirmish, so you actually find it more interesting and challenging to take care of the rugrat and still keep up with your exercises. Once we get back, the other wives won't even have had anything to do with raising this one. That will shock the shit out of them.'

'How often do you have babies?'

'Well, the average in the Clan is maybe every ten years or so, but Fleur is such a psychotic little Valkyrie that she usually goes about every twenty years or so between kids herself. Of course, some of the Fluffs actually have a kid every five years or so.'

'What is a Fluff?'

Max looked at the small scientist and smiled. She reminded him of some of Troy's wives, with a slender, short body and delicate features. 'Well, Fluffs are the women who are what you would call nymphomaniacs. They want sex all of the time. Some are worse than others, but at least several of Troy's wives are as bad as any Charkal slave that they've ever had. His one wife has one or more kids every two and a half to three years, and has since the day that she married him on her sixteenth birthday.'

'One or MORE kids?'

He smiled at her shocked expression. 'Kohl-garh's genes are strong. Most of his wives have twins more often than not, though almost none of his twins are ever anything but twin girls. There is occasionally a set of a boy and a girl, but never two boys.'

'That's amazing. Is that unique among the Clans?'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'Not really. Typically, about one in twenty sets of twins is not two girls. And it is very rare among ANY Clan for twin boys to be born because of the selective pressure against them by the nanobots. Females are more numerous simply because they aren't as stringently selected against. Males must have the right genetic markers, and enough of them, to avoid being spontaneously aborted by the nanobots long before the mother typically even knows that she's pregnant.'

'Why don't you change the selection parameters on the nanobots?'

Kahmmhi laughed softly. 'Clan experts spent thousands of years trying to do just that, but they've never had any success in learning how the bots were originally made or how to modify and control their parameters. They were originally put into us by the Consortium, and they just test various types of nanobots on any new species that they encounter and use whichever one gives them the best results.'

'So why didn't that work on your species?'

'We're a hybrid species. A mix of humans and Tryx. They never did anything with the Tryx, so they had no parameters for them in the first place. And since our species was genetically engineered to express certain Tryx genes as dominant genes, and they didn't know that, they put Pal'an'chee bots into us without knowing what they would do. They could control them simply by how intensely they followed their original programming, setting the selective pressures for perfect matches, but they couldn't do anything to alter the programming. The very highest selection criteria possible was used on my grandfather after he was captured. That was the worst mistake that the entire Consortium has ever made in the more than one hundred thousand years of their history.'

Max nodded. 'No shit. Kohl-garh dwarfs me, and I don't know any platoon on this ship that could last more than a few minutes against him while he was sparring with swords. If he was going all out and not pulling his blows, he'd probably take out an entire platoon in molecular armor in under a minute.'

Nakamura gasped, looking at Max closely. He was huge, and obviously very strong. She'd seen how heavy their armor was, and Max moved around in it like it was nothing. And she'd seen the statistics on how heavy and strong their swords were. 'He is that fast?'

Max shook his head. 'He is that fast, that strong, that good, and that much better with a sword than almost anyone in ANY Clan. Even those who have been studying weapons directly from him for more than six millennia say that he is better than they will ever be, and that he is constantly striving to improve his abilities and skills.'

Nakamura nodded, looking slightly glassy eyed. Virginia giggled when Fleur said something to her in Llyriana, then took Nakamura gently by the arm. 'Sorry, honey, but we have to get you away from Max and the guys for a while. I think that you're suffering some problems with the Alpha effect.'

Nakamura blushed, embarrassed as she realized that she was actually being affected by Max's pheromones. Being a scientist and knowing that there was a logical reason for her physical responses did nothing to ease the embarrassment of knowing that she wanted to strip and let him take her in front of everyone right now.

'Fortunately, he ISN'T Kohl-garh, so you'll get over being dosed by his pheromones in just a little bit once we get you away from him so that you can clear your head.'

'Thank you.'

Virginia smiled. 'There's no sense in letting you suffer needlessly. No matter what you did to get his attention, Fleur would never allow Max to take you as his wife, and Max would never even consider doing something like that.'

'Why is that? I thought that having multiple wives was the norm among the Clan?'

'Honey, remember what they told you about our nanobots in your briefings?'

Nakamura shook her head. 'Um, no. I really can't think very straight right now.'

'Our nanobots are lethal to your people. You couldn't ever become Alphas. They would attack your body just like they attacked that Borg drone that we captured, and would start breaking you down into a pile of sludge. Once you're infected, there is no way to stop the infection from progressing. You either become an Alpha, or you die. If we don't kill you quickly and painlessly, the nanobots will make your death a very slow, painful, and messy one.'

Nakamura nodded, shaking her head as the memories of what they had been shown of the Borg that had been infected by trying to inject Kahmmhi came flooding back to her mind. She shook violently. 'That would be bad. Very bad.'

Virginia got Nakamura interested in some of the other things that were going on, since all of the activities that the Clan members were doing were diversions that were designed to relieve stress and allow them to relax. Some of the contests were merely watered down versions of some of the training exercises, but they were fun and they really did help everyone relax and impress the members of the opposite sex with their skills and abilities. This was the one day of the week when people who wouldn't meet under any other circumstances were able to see new people, get to know them, and determine if someone impressed them enough to warrant enough of their time and energy to begin courting.

Nakamura finally went off with the other two female scientists to study the Clan's behavior and see how they lived their lives when they weren't preparing for war. It not only allowed them to keep an eye on each other, but also gave them something to distract them from other feelings that watching all of the large, very strong, very well trained males around them seemed to arouse in females in general, regardless of their species.

As they were walking around and watching the contests, Nakamura asked the other two if they were being affected by the pheromones of the Clan males.

K'ehlynn nodded. 'Oh, yes. Definitely. ANY of them is much stronger than any Klingon warrior who ever lived, so they definitely arouse interest in me. I have to keep telling myself that if they ever mated with me, I would not survive the wedding night.'

Nakamura stared at her. 'But it would take longer than that for the nanobots to kill you.'

'Klingons mate after the male defeats the female and forces her to submit herself, proving his mastery over her. They would probably kill me by accident during the fight before sex. If not, Klingon physiology requires us to be fucked very long and hard to keep from going crazy once our fires are ignited like that. He'd probably fuck me to death, causing accidental internal injuries from his thrusts, since all I'd be doing is demanding that he fuck me longer and harder. It's a response that is hardwired into us. Part of our genetic selection for the very strongest and fittest to survive. I probably wouldn't even feel the broken pelvic bones until I was already dying.'

Tahl'mahn nodded. 'We may be related to the Vulcans, but we don't suppress our emotions. We are very passionate when we mate as well, and require intense contact with our mate. The closest that the Vulcans get to that is Pon'Fahr, when their mating urge becomes irresistible and they go insane with lust and rage. They will literally kill for their mate.'

Nakamura nodded. 'Well, I guess that I shouldn't feel so bad about my own response, then. I wasn't wanting to do anything that was nearly that dangerous.'

K'ehlynn stopped to watch a contest that was going on. Males were throwing knives at moving targets, and the targets were small and very fast.

'That's not humanly possible.'

'Obviously, it is. Or they're not human.'

Nakamura nodded. 'Uh, yeah. I keep forgetting that.'

'Think about the science when you can, and you're not going to have as many problems. Fortunately, most of our discussions concerning the technology that we're supposed to be developing will be with the members of Voyager's crew, so none of them are Alphas.'

They all nodded as they remembered that fact. That would make it easier to concentrate on the matter at hand, as would talking to mostly female experts among the Clan when they had to discuss something that the people in Voyager's crew couldn't explain to them adequately. Not that they expected the Clan to explain the science to them beyond what the crew of Voyager had been able to figure out on their own or had to have explained to them by the Clan already. The whole point of this was to have the Alliance develop the new technologies on their own, limited by their current technological capabilities. How they developed and improved upon those technologies on their own after that was completely up to them.

Kahmmhi smiled as the Bajoran delegation followed Kyra onto her ship. 'Welcome. I hope that we can start working out all of the details so that we can begin the construction projects on Bajor as soon as possible.'

'That is also our hope.' The tall, slender Bajoran female spoke.

Kyra smiled. 'Kahmmhi, please allow me to introduce Lyrrin Malkys, a priestess in the temple to the Prophets, and Remal Sintar, one of the members of our ruling council.'

Kahmmhi smiled and bowed to the two of them. 'I am very pleased to meet you. Please, let's find someplace more comfortable to talk so that we can accomplish that which we all so dearly desire to see completed.'

She led them to a nearby room where there was a table, some comfortable chairs, and a synthesizer. 'Please, help yourself to refreshments at any time, and make yourselves comfortable.'

Kyra got a mug of hot khorb extract with dark chocolate, and the others got something that they recognized from the selection before taking their seats.

'I see that you have many Bajoran dishes on your synthesizer.'

'Yes. They were part of what we traded for the first time that we were here. Some of the dishes are more popular than others, but all of them are appreciated. We often enjoy some of the fresh seafood delicacies from Bajor when we are on DS9 and visit Quark's.'

Kyra nodded. 'Yes. And the synthesizers make it possible for us to enjoy rare delicacies without ever doing anything to overfish the rare species. It has had quite an impact on our planet, both in terms of nutrition and for the ecology itself.'

'We're glad that we could be of help to you. We couldn't build more than the compounds that we did the last time that we were here, but that was mostly because of time constraints, since you were supplying all of the raw materials that we used in the construction.'

'And we can do that this time as well. Though we do need to go over how much construction you can manage to do, what time frame we are talking about, and try to figure out some logical procedure for getting all of the desired construction done.'

'How much construction are we talking about?'

'We can build compounds that are five times the size of the compounds that we built before, but we can only build twenty of them.'

Remal nodded. 'That would be enough to house more than a million people at each location. You're talking about the equivalent of replacing our twenty largest cities.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Yes. With the appropriate infrastructure, of course. We have the building methods down fairly well, and we can build the dwellings and larger buildings without any real problems. But we're not exactly well versed in clearing out the old construction first. Generally, if there's anything there before we take over, we either take it intact and modify it, or we destroy it in combat and then build whatever we need to replace it with.'

'We suffered a lot of losses during our war with the Cardassians, and they stripped our planet of almost everything that they thought had any value at all. There are only a few sites or buildings that would have to be preserved for historical, religious, or other purposes.'

The priestess nodded. 'Is there some way to retain our temples as they are?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Yes. We should be able to do that. It may slow construction in that area down somewhat, but that shouldn't be a major factor in the overall timetable. We'll need to work out what you would like as far as how to set up the layout of the cities, how you would like the parks and other things designed, and how many armories and other things that we normally put into our construction you wish to have.'

Kyra smiled at that statement. The Bajoran government had almost freaked out when they discovered that the detention facilities that the Clan had built had included armories in the areas that weren't used to house the captured prisoners of war. And the few places that they had installed site to site transporters had all had to be highly modified with the addition of numerous signal enhancers to allow them to get proper confinement on the transporter beams. It was like having to beam through a very large distance of dense materials to get into any of the buildings in the compounds. Most of the transporter sites were simply placed outside because it was easier, safer, and more reliable.

They spent the rest of the day talking, going over the details even while eating lunch, and finally called it a day around six in the evening. Kahmmhi smiled. 'Unless you have some overwhelming desire to spend the night on a Clan ship and see exactly how cold it can become, I'll walk you back to your shuttle.'

'Thank you. We would appreciate that very much.'

Kyra looked at Kahmmhi as they were walking to the shuttle bay. 'So, what is on the agenda for tomorrow?'

'I was thinking that we could go over the specifications of the ships that we can provide to Bajor to serve as the core of their first navy, and then figure out how many of them you would require.'

Lyrrin nodded her head. 'Then I will remain behind tomorrow, since we of the temple do not entangle ourselves in weapons and warfare. We have already heard how the Clan wages war, and the attention that they pay to the weapons that they use in that pursuit.'

Kahmmhi nodded, accepting her excuse without question or comment. Kyra was the military expert, and Remal was the government official who knew what they could afford in terms of resource investment and manpower. And while it wouldn't cost them anything in terms of resources to accept the ships, it would take resources to keep them properly maintained and man them properly. They would know how much of their resources and population they were willing to commit to an undertaking such as this. Though it shouldn't require any resources from the planet at all to maintain the fleet once they received them, since the ships would be bringing back more AM from hyperspace than it would take to maintain them, and the surplus could be used to generate power for the rest of the planet, allowing them to run synthesizers for very energy intensive applications whenever they wished to do so.

They reached the shuttle bay, and Kahmmhi bade them farewell, watching them leave the bay slowly and then accelerate away from the ship. It would take them about half an hour to reach DS9. As they walked back to her quarters, she wondered how the techs had made out with the Alliance representatives today. They were supposed to go over all of the scientific background and get the Alliance experts and representatives up to speed so that they would know what they were discussing when they talked it over with Kahmmhi. It wasn't really necessary, but she really did have to get things started on the Bajoran construction projects before she could devote the time to the other aspects of the negotiations. And she definitely wanted to be there when the experts from Voyager began explaining things to the Alliance representatives. She wanted to make sure that they realized exactly how limited and restricted the uses were for the technology that they were being given. It would allow them to travel through hyperspace, but it wasn't going to magically allow them to move through hyper like the Clan did, or to emulate the evasive maneuvers and combat tactics that the Clan normally used. All in all, this was definitely going to be very interesting. Now all that Kahmmhi could think about was wishing that her grandmothers hadn't been so good at ingraining her normal response to that word. All she could do was shudder in nervous anticipation because she still associated that word with her grandfather starting to improvise and everything going to hell from that point on.

Kahmmhi's meeting with Kyra and Remal went very well. They began by discussing the amount of manpower that they were willing to commit to something that was this important to the Bajoran people and their system, and then went into how the benefits would improve the standard of living for the entire planet, as well as give them at least some type of defense force of their own.

'What, exactly, are we talking about here? And how well will it actually allow us to protect ourselves?'

Kahmmhi smiled, liking Remal simply because he was so straightforward and direct in his questions and his responses. She could only hope that at least some of the representatives from the Federation would be as cooperative. 'Well, before we begin talking about the exact number of ships, and the capabilities they would have, I think that it would help give you a better overall picture of what I'm talking about if I told you about the types of ships that we're thinking of building for you.'

'OK. That is reasonable, but I thought that Kyra told us that you had said that you were simply giving us ships that were similar to your HATs, only built to our technological capabilities.'

'We are. But some of our people did come up with some ways to take the same basic ship design and modify it slightly for different purposes.'

'Very well. This sounds intriguing.'

Kyra nodded, leaning forward. She was also anxious to hear what Kahmmhi had in mind. From her previous experience with Kahmmhi, she knew that the Clan didn't do anything by half measures.

'OK. All of the shuttles will be based on the HAT, so they will be about the same size and dimensions as our standard HAT is. We're not limiting it to that, since we may make some modifications that would be easier to incorporate if we modified the ship's size or profile somewhat. Though doing that would make each type of ship distinguishable from all of the others, we're not thinking that you'd have a problem with that, since you aren't exactly going to be going to war with anyone outside of your system using simply small craft.'

Kyra nodded. 'That's true. We've never even really had a navy. Just a few captured small craft or some small craft that we modified to get our troops to wherever they needed to go.'

'We're aware of that, and we're intending to train your troops and whatever volunteers you have for offensive troops so that they know how to use their craft properly and can do boarding techniques with the ships that you have. Now, as to the ships themselves. We had several different types in mind so that you could cover all of the different needs that your system has. We know from our prior visit how extensively your system was pillaged and stripped of resources by the Cardassians, and we feel that since you didn't get real reparations after the Dominion war, we should do something to correct this deficit.'

'But, you built all of those centers for us, and our people were able to move into them once the prisoners were removed.'

'Yes. But we would have done that for you anyway, since it wasn't your fault that you were invaded and then almost invaded again. While they maintained DS9 and provided some security to your system in order to at least monitor the wormhole that leads to the Delta quadrant, the Federation really didn't do all that much to help the people of your planet fully recover from your war with the Cardassian Empire. As far as we could tell, their "humanitarian efforts" to rebuild your society and help you recover weren't all that intensive, even by their own standards, and we intend to rectify that.'

Both Bajorans looked at her, stunned by that statement. Even for Kahmmhi, Kyra thought that she was going out of her way to criticize the Federation. Though many Bajorans shared her sentiments about how much the Federation had done for them, especially when it was compared to what the Federation had gotten out of the arrangement in return, she hadn't expected Kahmmhi to actually say something like that.

Kahmmhi simply smiled and continued speaking. 'You will need some courier ships to communicate with other systems or do at least some diplomatic or other missions. Trade delegations. Things of that nature. One of the versions will have the interior rebuilt so that it has cabins for people to travel in between systems. That should allow you to do all of the missions of that nature.'

Remal and Kyra nodded, realizing that Kahmmhi was actually thinking about Bajor's future as an independent system, and not relying on either the Federation or the Alliance to do anything for them.

'Now, the next thing that your system will definitely require to support your standard of living is some ships that are designed to gather all of the antimatter and other resources that will support your system. While you can collect antimatter from any of the three hyper streams that connect to this system, the same can't be said of the matter and minerals that you will need to collect. By using hyper, you can send ships to other systems to harvest minerals, resources, and matter from any system that isn't claimed or inhabited. The ships for this should be larger so that they can hold enough materials to make the trip worth the effort, but since we can't just build you a fleet of ships, we had something else in mind.'

Kyra looked at her curiously, but Remal was clearly interested to hear more.

'We do have the ability to build you one larger ship that can handle several of the smaller ships and carry them to other systems to do this type of work. And it can also be large enough to have cargo holds that would make it worth the time and effort of going to other systems to harvest resources.'

'How large a ship are you talking about, and how many of the smaller ships would it hold?'

'For this, we were thinking that it should be about three kliks long and two kliks in diameter. After taking out the space for the various required systems, the storage, and living quarters, you should have enough bay space to carry at least six or eight of the HATs that are designed for that type of work.'

Both Kyra and Remal were stunned by the idea of Bajor having a ship. Especially one that was that large. It would dwarf even the Sovereign class Federation ships.

'It would have lasers for self defense, as well as the ability to use them to help cut larger asteroids into smaller chunks that the ships could bring on board. A large nickel-iron asteroid would provide a lot of mass for the synthesizers to use for various purposes, and any materials that you collect and refine could also be used as trade materials with other systems.'

Remal realized that Kahmmhi was going to make sure that the Bajorans would have a chance to improve their standard of living well beyond anything that their own system could provide with its limited resources, and that they could even become a prosperous civilization through hard work if they applied themselves to that goal.

Kyra realized that the ship that Kahmmhi was talking about building would be capable of doing much more than harvesting materials for Bajor if the need ever arose.

'We have determined that, while it would be possible for you to maintain your defenses simply by using planetary based ships, it would be better if you had at least two small carriers for some of your HATs to stage from. That would allow you to have better security, and would allow those who are serving in your defense forces or navy to have another place to land so that they can rearm, rest, or switch out crews without taking all of the time that returning to Bajor would require. They would be about the same size as the other ship, but would have more of their interior room devoted to use as personal quarters and bays for the shuttles. Each ship would be capable of holding about fifty HATs and all of the support personnel for them, including boarding forces.'

'Fifty HATs! EACH!' Kyra was overwhelmed.

'Well, we certainly don't expect you to come up with that many personnel all at once, and we weren't really going to build quite THAT many HATs for you initially. Though you could use your own resources to gradually build even more HATS, and possibly even more or larger ships, if you thought that it was necessary. Of course, if you are worried about the size and number of personnel, you could build smaller shuttles similar to those that we modified for Voyager and come up with a small, fast fighter to support them.'

'You seem to think that we need to be preparing for war.'

'Yes, Remal. Eventually, someone is going to find their way here from one of the other quadrants. Most of the civilizations that we've discovered in the Delta and Gamma quadrants are either aggressive or very militant and territorial. You must have the ability, the determination, and the means to protect yourselves if you expect to survive.'

Kyra nodded. 'So how many HATs are you thinking about building for us at the start?'

'About sixty of them that are designed for dual duty as attack or patrol craft and troop transports for boardings. If you put twenty of them on each ship, that would leave twenty to defend Bajor. We were thinking that you could use about twenty of the ships for harvesting and resource collection. And about ten courier ships.'

'That is a fleet of ninety ships. Not to mention the actual fleet of three large carriers for them.'

'Yes, Kyra.'

'And what does the Federation or their Alliance think of this idea of making Bajor an independently armed force with technology that is equivalent to the best that the Alliance possesses?'

'I wouldn't know. We haven't discussed this with them because it doesn't concern them. Bajor isn't actually a member of either the Federation or the Alliance, and as such, we consider you to be an independent system with your own government and rule.'

Kyra nodded. 'She's right, you know. The Federation forced themselves on us after the end of our war with the Cardassians, coming in under the guise of providing humanitarian relief for the Bajorans, but actually we all know that they were simply interested in gaining at least some control over and access to the wormhole and making sure that it didn't come under the control of someone who might use it against the Federation. They made us a "protectorate", and promised us that we could eventually become full members of the Federation, but that long, slow process hasn't even really begun yet because they keep finding excuses to put off even starting the process.'

Remal nodded. 'That's true. But won't they object to us having our own fleet?'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'I don't see any reason for them to object. You're simply making your own system safer for your people and improving their standard of living. As long as you allow them to keep a force stationed inside the system to guard the wormhole for their own defense, as well as yours, they shouldn't have any reason to complain. And all of you can use the wormhole to enter and explore the Delta quadrant from here. If they begin exploration, they may even be able to start contacting other civilizations in the Delta quadrant and begin trading with them peacefully. Eventually, they could expand the Federation or the Alliance to include other systems there.'

She smiled. 'Though I would actually suggest that they use hyper to explore the Delta quadrant at first. That way nobody there knows that they are there studying them, and they will have a much better idea of exactly how each civilization behaves and acts when they don't know that anyone else is around. You get a much better idea of how they are by doing that than you do by talking with them and hearing what they want you to hear.'

Kyra smiled, realizing that the Clan did recon on potential enemies before contacting them. As a soldier, she agreed with that concept wholeheartedly.

'How long would it take for these ships to be constructed?'

'Just a few years at most. We will be busy building your new cities, and we're going to have some of our experts tied up dealing with the modifications that are going to be made to the Federation and Alliance ships, so it will take longer than it normally would. If we were talking about building larger ships, we couldn't do it without devoting all of our own resources to it because we don't have any of our own shipyards with us.'

Kyra nodded. 'Your technology and science are so advanced that I keep forgetting that you're simply a small scouting force for your Clan, and that you really don't have unlimited resources, even though it often seems that way to us. I guess that everyone does have their limits.'

Krohn chuckled. 'Tell that to her grandfather. Clan Phoenix could build immense fleets for every member of the Alliance within fifty years. Fleets of ships like our own.'

Kyra blinked in amazement. 'Please, tell me that he's kidding.'

'Oh, no. They typically have enough resources on hand to build a large number of ships, many of them larger than anything that our own Clan even has yet. PACs, PSCs, PSC Home Ships, along with their support ships. I don't think that the Federation could fully man a PAC if they used all of the personnel in StarFleet.'

'I don't know. StarFleet has a lot of personnel. How many people are we talking about?'

'A single PAC requires three million people for the crew and security forces for the heavy strike assault shuttles that it carries. They deliver ten million combat troops as a single attack force. The other support craft require three and a half million as crew and security forces for the PT boats, assault fighters, and armored transports. The HATs that the ship carries requires four million crew and another ten million troops.'

Kyra suddenly realized exactly what Kahmmhi was talking about when she continued to think of her own Clan as small. A single ship that required thirty million, five hundred thousand people.

'And then, of course, there is the actual crew of the ship, the ship's support personnel, and the security troops who make sure that the enemy can't board the ship and take it over.'

Remal just shook his head in disbelief. 'And your grandfather actually has ships that large?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'His Clan has six PACs and twenty four PSCs, which are each capable of carrying about half as many small craft and troops as a PAC does.'

Kyra did the math quickly, and came up with numbers that actually frightened her. She had seen how Clan troops performed in battle. The idea of seeing roughly a quarter of a billion Clan combat troops in one place at one time was too much for her mind to handle. 'That's a quarter of a billion troops.'

Krohn nodded. 'Yes. On just those ships. If you count all of the troops and crew members of the strike wing's small craft, Kohl-garh has about two billion warriors ready for combat at any given time.'

Kyra shuddered, and Remal just looked completely amazed. He had no idea that Kyra was thinking about how a force that large and powerful could sweep through their entire galaxy, wiping out entire systems as they went. With the Clan's technology and method of travel, there would be no way to predict where or when they would strike next, and there would be no way for anyone to effectively resist them. And while the Clan wouldn't do anything like that to their galaxy, their enemy had comparable tech and capabilities. Well, they were not exactly comparable, but close enough to surpass even what the Alliance was being given right now, and they certainly had enough of an advantage in their overall numbers to overcome the limited technological advantages that the Alliance might possess once they incorporated the new improvements that the Clan was now offering.

'You're worried that the Consortium might find a way here.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'Not really. But it is possible that some of the cultures that we've seen could be the technological equivalent of the Consortium by the time that they discover your system and the Alliance. Even if they're not, supplying this technology to some systems that we know aren't all that warlike, aggressive, or eager to expand their power base by force means that we allow you a chance to grow, develop, and improve your technology on your own.' She chuckled. 'Unless they make some major changes in their current technology, the Borg are no longer a threat to any of your people. You may lack some of the weapons that we used to take out so many of their ships so quickly, and to destroy or damage the transwarp hub, but you could still defend yourselves much better than what your records indicate happened to the Federation at Wolf 359. Even Bajor could easily take out a Borg cube with the HATs that we're giving you. AM mines do a lot of damage to Borg cubes, as we've proven to the Borg already. And since they can't detect your ships, the very first attack may make the Borg think that they've run into the Clan again, and they may run and never return.'

Kyra shook her head, smiling at the thought. 'If it doesn't, we'll do what we can to make sure that any force that does return runs into enough antimatter that they won't have very long to decide that they made a very big mistake. After that, they'll just be dead.'

Remal nodded, leaving military matters in the hands of the military expert. Many Bajorans had been very peace loving, and had tried to avoid the conflict with the Cardassians, but it hadn't taken long under the harsh rule of the Cardassians before they had all realized that they needed those Bajorans who embraced warfare, violence, and danger if they were to survive the threats that were posed by outside forces who did not believe as the vast majority of Bajorans did.

Kahmmhi and the others quickly adjourned their meeting so that they could return to Bajor and inform the ruling council of the Clan's offer. At about fifty people per ship for crew, that would require about twenty five hundred people for crews, more for support and maintenance personnel, and about six thousand troops to be trained as ground forces for boardings. But she really didn't know how they would respond when they learned that they'd need about ten thousand more personnel to man the three ships that she was talking about building for them. All in all, they were talking about putting twenty thousand or more Bajorans to work in the fleet in one capacity or another. All that Kahmmhi could do for now was wait and see how the Bajorans responded to her offer.

Janeway wasn't expecting the first day of the actual negotiations with Kahmmhi to be anything more than the typical introductory formalities, since she had previously given the Alliance representatives her basic stance on the overall objectives that she was interested in achieving, and they knew that they couldn't hope to push for much more than what she was offering to help them with outright in the first place. They had met informally already, and had already figured out that the Romulans and Klingons were both willing to accept her demands, so the Federation representatives didn't have a lot more to do. Or so she thought.

As Sisko called the meeting to order, Janeway saw that Kyra was sitting with Sisko and the experts and staff from DS9, and that there wasn't even a table to represent the Bajorans in this meeting. There was the table with the experts from Voyager, which she was sitting at currently, one with the military commanders of the Alliance fleet that was inside this system for security, one for the Romulans, one for the Klingons, and two for the Federation. One was for the actual politicians, and one was for their experts. The reporters were standing at various points around the room in order to get better video coverage of the events, and so that the reporters could make comments quietly for their own records without disturbing the actual formal proceedings. Nothing about this historic series of negotiations was going to be fully secret, though some things would not be released the the general public as part of the official record simply as a matter of maintaining the necessary security over certain critical technologies or information.

Sisko smiled at the end of the formal introductions of those present, all part of the formalities so that it would be noted on the official records and recorded by the press, and then turned to Kahmmhi. 'We were informed that the Bajorans will not be attending the rest of the meetings, and that the Bajoran liaison to StarFleet, Colonel Kyra Nerys will represent their interests unless something specific comes up that must be addressed by their civilian leaders personally. Is that to your satisfaction, Tahr Kahhni Kahmmhi?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Of course. We spent two days meeting with the Bajorans, going over what we could do to help them recover even more from their war with the Cardassians and their current situation, and we reached agreements with them that are satisfactory to the Clan. We are confident that they understand the limitations of the construction that we can do for them concerning building more facilities for their people to live in, and that they are very pleased with the fleet that we have agreed to build for them so that they can guarantee the safety of their own system.'

Ambassador Williams stood. 'I don't understand. The Bajorans are a Federation protectorate. WE are providing for their security and safety, helping them to rebuild their planet and helping both their citizens and their society to recover from the deprivations that the Cardassians caused for their planet and their system.'

Kahmmhi smiled as she stood to reply. 'Since the Bajorans are not members of the Federation, the Clan still considers them to be a separate and completely independent entity. They have their own laws, their own working government, and, to be quite honest, even the smallest Clan that I know of could provide more relief for their people than the entire Federation seems to be either willing or capable of doing with their vast resource base.'

Ambassador Sanchez stood, whispered something into Williams' ear, and he nodded and sat down. 'Please excuse my colleagues' response. He wasn't thinking of the fact that Bajor isn't a full member of the Federation, and that the system still hasn't even been accepted for potential membership. May we inquire as to the extent of the assistance that the Clan is providing to the Bajoran system and its inhabitants?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Of course. In addition to constructing replacements for their twenty largest cities so that their inhabitants have better housing that is built to what we consider proper standards, we are giving the Bajorans their own navy.'

Sanchez swallowed nervously as several others looked at each other, shocked by what they'd just heard. 'And what is this navy comprised of?'

'Three small carriers. Two of them will serve as mobile platforms for their small craft that they will use to maintain their own system security. The third will serve as a mobile platform for some of the other small craft that they will be using to harvest both antimatter and materials for use in supporting their system and their standard of living.'

Korg stood, smiling at Kahmmhi. He and the others at his table weren't nearly as surprised or worried by what they had just heard as most of the politicians from the Federation seemed to be. 'May we have some idea of the specifications for those ships, since I assume that the small craft are all modified versions of the HATs that your Clan uses, and that they will be comparable to the ships that we are going to be capable of building ourselves with the technology that you have already given us.'

'That is correct. The carriers will be small. Three kliks long, two kliks in diameter. Slightly larger than the oldest Clan carriers that we had in our own recorded history. Similar in size and capacity to the assault carriers that were the second generation Clan carriers to be built, though they will house fewer small craft, since we are talking about using larger individual craft and not currently giving the Bajorans anything that would qualify as a fighter, since they don't really intend to do offensive operations as a general rule. Though I did already have a private discussion with Colonel Nerys to explain to her how they could build modified shuttles similar to those that were made for Voyager, and how they could be used as small fighters to act as support craft for their larger small craft.'

'Have you determined the specifications on the carriers yet?'

'The specifications haven't been finalized. They will all have lasers, though the salvage ship will probably be more lightly armed than the other two, even if it will probably be slightly larger. It can't hold more than twenty small craft max simply because all of the interior space that can be devoted to it is being designated for storage and cargo. Probably about fifty meters of hull armor, with it being composed of the best grade of armor that you can build with your current technology. We can build it more quickly, so we're going to build the original ships for them, but they could eventually upgrade or expand their fleet if they chose to devote the necessary resources to that type of project. They will almost certainly begin building additional small craft of their own to bring all of the carriers up to their full capacity as they are able to train more personnel. We are currently going to be giving them sixty HATs for that type of work, and if they station twenty on each carrier, that would leave them with another wing of twenty based off of Bajor itself to provide for planetary security. Twenty more HATs with different modifications will be provided to allow them to harvest resources, and the carrier will have half of them on board while the other half are based within the system itself. The remaining ten HATs will be configured as courier ships to allow them to send their own delegations to other systems to work out trade agreements, treaties, or other things on their own.'

'All of the HATs and carriers will be hyper capable, just as Voyager currently is, and will have gravitic engines. We think that the carriers will be able to hit about five light seconds per hour as a max speed, since we're building them to take full advantage of the available materials and their limitations. They will have to use interior structural integrity fields to allow full speed during some maneuvers, since you don't have inertial compensators that are capable of handling all of the stresses independently of such assistance. Your inertial dampeners will be used heavily in their construction, and we're hoping that using many more of them than normal will allow the ships to be safer during any sharp, sudden, unexpected maneuvers that cause major stress or inertia to be experienced. Since they will be collecting and using lots of antimatter anyway, the additional use of energy won't make that much of a difference.'

Korg nodded, satisfied with the answer, and sat down.

Councillor Andersson stood and looked at Admiral Yamato. 'Could you please explain what she just said to us, Admiral?'

'They're building three large ships for the Bajorans. The small craft will be similar to some that we could build on our own if we wish to devote that much of our resources to the project. They are very similar to some plans that we've come up with on our own, and we should probably consider doing so, since I know that the Federation and their allies have all determined that we need to convert the larger ships that we've been given into carriers of our own. If we convert the larger warships, they will be larger and more powerful than the Bajoran carriers, but the Bajoran carriers will be larger and more powerful than a Federation Sovereign class ship. I assume that it will also be fully capable of stealth, or at least as much stealth as our current technology allows.'

Kahmmhi nodded.

Admiral Thompson stood. 'Are you TRYING to destabilize our Alliance? Do you have any idea what giving a fleet of ships this large and powerful to the Bajorans is going to do?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'It will make this system safer. For the Bajorans, and for the rest of the Alpha quadrant. The Bajorans will defend the wormhole to the best of their capabilities, even if the Alliance refuses to. It gives this system another safety margin, just as having independent commands from all three Alliance members here means that someone would have to subvert the command of all three fleets in order to take control of this system without a fight. I find the possibility of someone being able to accomplish that highly unlikely.'

Ambassador Krang stood. 'I applaud your foresight, Kahmmhi. We will welcome the assistance of the Bajorans in making sure that the wormhole remains accessible to all.'

Ambassador Mek'Vihm stood and faced Admiral Thompson. 'Since this doesn't really concern the members of the Alliance, and since we have no legal standing regarding the treaties or agreements made between the Clan and any other third parties, I move that we resume discussing what we were sent here to discuss. We have already agreed to Kahmmhi's suggestions concerning the Voyager and its crew, and we have no business with the deals that the Clan makes involving the Bajorans, who, while our hosts, aren't technically involved in any of this directly, since the Federation never gave them the opportunity to pursue full membership in the Federation.'

Councillor McNamara stood and nodded. 'I concur. We must stick to the topic at hand or we will never complete our mission in a timely fashion.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Very well. We should go over the details of the discoveries that were made by Voyager, what they managed to learn on their own, and then we can go over the details of the modifications that we helped them to make to their ship and their small craft. If you intend for your ships to be fully functional, I will state before we begin that you will have to make them larger than otherwise so that they can contain warp engines for use in traveling between systems more quickly when there isn't a hyper link to the desired system.'

Janeway nodded her head in agreement. 'Yes, that would be very important, especially for any ships that are going to be used for warships or relief ships. And it would make it much easier for exploration ships to escape if they were cut off from the hyper point inside the system that they were in. When we reached the last system in the Delta quadrant, we had to use our gravitic engines to move from that system to the wormhole that leads to DS9. I can verify that it was a very long and boring journey, requiring months to accomplish simply because we no longer had warp engines and were not capable of skipping through hyper.'

'What about using hyper engines, the way that the Clan does?'

Kahmmhi smiled sadly at the Federation science expert who had spoken up. 'Dr. Koryll, your culture currently lacks the technology to make functional inertial compensators. Even if you could build them, they only work for normal travel that doesn't involve skipping across a system, unless you can build your own compensators better than those that the Consortium still uses. You lack the technology and expertise to build some of the more durable materials that we use for our ships, since they don't occur naturally here and you can't synthesize them without using a LOT of time and materials, not to mention a LOT of energy. Keeping this in mind, do you really want to risk building a ship that can't withstand the stresses that are normally associated with what we consider minor compensator failures?'

The Andorean went pale, all of the color draining from his skin as the ramifications of the effects of a "minor" compensator failure, both for the ship and its occupants, flooded through his mind. Inertia was well within his realm of experience, and he didn't have to be an expert in theoretical physics to understand the results.

B'elana stood and began going over the discoveries that had been made by Voyager's crew, and how they had done the modifications to the ship itself and the shuttle that they had modified before the Clan's arrival. This took several hours, even without the scientists interrupting her for more details, and they broke for lunch. After lunch, B'elana resumed her story and concluded with the modifications that the Clan had made and how they had made them.

'So, Voyager had better cloaking than our ships currently do, and once it was upgraded by the Clan, your ship currently has what the Clan considers primitive stealth capabilities?' Williams sounded impressed.

'Yes, Ambassador.'

'And the gravitic drives are actually better than impulse engines, and have no real energy requirements?'

'Minimal, sir. You have to input some energy to direct the attraction or repulsion effects, and to scale up the intensity. But once you're moving, the actual movement doesn't require energy input. Maximum relative speed is determined by the intensity of the attraction and the distance between you and the object that you're heading toward or away from. You have to limit the maximum speed to what is safe for your ship.'

'Interesting. And what about hyperspace?'

'You are limited to the natural speed that the hyper stream you are in is flowing, sir. While the Clan can control their gravitic engines and actually increase the speed of their ships in hyper at least somewhat for emergencies, we can't. And we absolutely can NOT use warp engines to try to move faster than normal while we're inside a hyper stream.'

'Why not? I don't understand what it is about that idea that seems to terrify you.'

B'elana looked at Thompson, wondering how in the hell someone managed to attain the rank of rear admiral without ever learning even that much about the basics of warp engine theory. It was obvious to a cadet fresh out of the academy, as she had discovered when she took over the role of chief engineer aboard Voyager.

'Sir, if you create a warp bubble inside hyperspace and try to move, you are going to collide with the walls of the hyper stream because you simply can't move that fast or navigate inside one of them at that type of speed. The walls of a hyper stream are constantly moving, twisting, bending, and gyrating around relative to your position, and they are lined with vast amounts of antimatter. Your shields can only deflect so much antimatter before some of it will get through. And when it comes into contact with your ship...'

Nobody in the room needed B'elana to complete that sentence. They were all well aware of what happened to a starship that lost antimatter containment and had antimatter come into contact with the ship itself.

Yamato nodded. 'Bad things happen. Nobody can even prove that you ever existed, because there's nothing left of you. Right. Definitely do NOT activate warp inside a hyper stream.'

Tahl'mahn looked at Kahmmhi. 'The Clan doesn't use anything other than gravitic engines and hyperspace for their movements?'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'We do skip through hyperspace to get to a system that doesn't have a hyper point if we have to, but it can take a couple of years to do that. And we do microjumps within a system to get from one point to another quickly, but that does cause some stress on the inertial compensators. We don't generally have to worry about that because we use so many redundant systems that one or two blown compensators won't even begin to stress our systems out or destroy one of our ships. And our personnel regularly take ten Gs as part of their training. Not as a ten G stress, but as a constant that we work out in normally. The children don't handle that much gravity well, but all of the adults do learn to deal with that stress during Basic without any real problems. Offensive forces troops regularly train at ten Gs, and we can control the gravity on our ships well enough to change even individual rooms, if necessary. You may remember that we used similar techniques to confine all of the captured Dominion prisoners without having to have a lot of guards watching over them all of the time. Even Jem'Haddar don't seem to like trying to move around in ten Gs very much.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'It's getting late. I propose that we call it a day, and that we give you all at least one day to go over everything that you've just learned so that we can discuss everything much more rationally.'

The others agreed with that suggestion. Before Sisko could end the meeting, Kahmmhi added, 'And I think that it would be very educational if we could take about a week or so to do a demonstration for everyone here. It would definitely help you understand things much better if we all took a short trip.'

Everyone was curious now. 'A trip?'

'Yes. If we go to one of the hyper points in this system, we can travel through hyper to the next system and then return. That will allow you all some time to get to know more things about the Clan and our technology, it will allow your experts time to talk to our own experts about certain things so that they understand them, and the limitations of your technology, much better than they currently do, and it will allow all of you to experience hyper travel. You will have a better understanding of the hyper streams, and we can even do some microjumps inside this system and the other one so that your experts understand the limitations that they have to work with and the problems that they will have to overcome as they attempt to develop your own technology to the point where you are also capable of doing hyper microjumps.'

'How long would all of this take?'

Kahmmhi looked at Krohn. 'What's the nearest system to this one?'

'Beta point has a system that's only three days each way, but it's empty. Gamma point connects to the Gamma quadrant. Alpha point actually connects to some system that's inhabited, but we still don't know if it's actually a system that any of them have ever mapped. We never did all of the stellar cartography on this quadrant and overlaid it with maps of their Federation explored space or the two empires.'

'How far to that one?'

'Just over four days, each way.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'We can take you to an uninhabited system in three days, or to one that has some civilization that we don't recognize in four. Each way.'

The diplomats looked at each other. Either way would require about a week. After a quick discussion, the lead delegate went over to talk to the Romulan and Klingon delegates. It took a few minutes, but they agreed.

'We would like to see this inhabited system that is only four days away from here. Even at high warp, there aren't any systems that close to this one.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Very well. When would you like to leave?'

Krang looked surprised. 'How soon could we leave?'

'We could take a shuttle to whatever ship Virginia determines is best to take and leave within half an hour of our arrival there.'

Kahmmhi contacted Virginia to see what she thought.

'A trip? You're staying right here on the Rolling Thunder. I can have the ship ready to leave, and we'll skip to the hyper point in one hour. We'll take the Blitzkrieg and the Scorpion with us. Just in case.'

'Virginia, aren't you being just a bit...'

'Kahm, be a good girl or I'll bring the whole fleet.'

Kahmmhi sighed, realizing that Virginia was serious. 'Yes, Mommy. Overprotective little bitch. I think that you're starting to go Fluff on me or something.'

Virginia laughed, hearing the chuckles of some of Kahmmhi's Shadows in the background. Of course at least Krohn would be listening in on the conversation, so that didn't surprise her. Nothing that a Tahr Kahhni did was technically unknown to her Shadows. Even when they gave her privacy, they kept her under surveillance so that they could protect her. They could probably tell Virginia the very first time the girl had ever masturbated after she was given Shadows. Not that they would ever actually violate her privacy like that. And not that Virginia or anyone else in the Clan believed that ANY Dark Elf could reach the age of twelve without already being an expert at masturbation to relieve her sexual frustrations.

Kahmmhi cut the comm and looked at the representatives. 'Anyone who isn't wanting to take the trip with us and be gone for at least eight days had better get to their shuttle and head for DS9. Virginia is going to start skipping across the system and heading to the hyper point in one hour.'

Sisko and several in his group had to leave, much as they would have liked to have stayed. Chief O'Brien, Kyra, and Jadzia remained on board, though. They would report all of their observations to Sisko and the Bajorans after their return. Admiral Yamato and the other commanders of the Alliance force in the system returned to their commands. Everyone else remained on the ship.

'Krohn, have someone take all of the experts up to the bridge so that they can watch the ships skipping across the system. If Virginia doesn't like it, she can kiss my shiny black hiney.'

Krohn and the other Shadows laughed, then had the experts escorted to the bridge so that they could observe the movements of the ships across the system. It would be the first time that they had been able to see what was happening and use their instruments to record microjumping. That would give them a lot of information to study and evaluate once they began to lose interest in studying hyperspace. Four days was a long time.

Kahmmhi took everyone else over to the synthesizers, getting some food while they waited. They could watch the movements across the system through a feed from the bridge, and then watch the entry into hyper. After that, they could get some sleep and rest for a while. There wouldn't be a lot for them to do while they were inside hyper other than to explore the ship and learn more about the Clan and their equipment. Even that would get boring for most of them after a while.

Virginia welcomed the Alliance experts to her bridge, then made sure that they remained out of the way. Just reminding them that causing someone to screw up was much more likely to cause a compensator failure that would leave them smeared across a wall or seriously injured than it was to cause the same thing to happen to any of the Clan members overcame their scientific enthusiasm and adrenaline rush. This wasn't some new phenomenon for them to study in the safety of their lab. They were on board a Clan warship, and if anything went wrong, they could be injured or killed.

The five of them were discussing things quietly when the first jump occurred. Tahl'mahn looked at the others with a shocked expression. What just happened?'

'What do you mean? I didn't feel anything.'

'Look at the star field. It's not the same.'

Virginia smiled at Laura. 'Give them the data as we go, but make sure that we don't rush things.'

The scientists had just figured out that they weren't wrong when they realized that they were now much farther from DS9 than they had been just a few moments before.

'OK. We're doing short, very safe microjumps, and we're even taking our time between jumps to allow you to get some readings and collect data for your analysis. Right now, we're sticking to one light minute jumps, which isn't all that far in a ship this size. The assault frigates that are escorting us are capable of handling that distance without any problems, though it is a bit far for a Grak battleship, and really pushing it for a Grak battlecruiser. And the Graks certainly wouldn't want to try another jump before they'd had time to check on all of their inertial compensators and replace any of them that were showing signs of stress and wear.'

'One light minute. That's eighteen million kilometers. How long does that take in real time?'

'Technically, several microseconds. We enter hyper at one point, and come out at another. There really isn't all that much time in between. It's kind of like you blinked and you're somewhere else.'

The scientists nodded as they digested this information and thought about what that capability could mean for their in-system travel if they really put it to use.

'We don't generally do this just to cross a system unless we're in a hurry. There's not a lot of risk, but there is some risk involved. Accidents do happen. It stresses inertial compensators and puts a lot of wear on them, and that significantly shortens their working lifetime. Typically, we replace worn compensators long before they fail and then recycle them to reuse the materials. Though sometimes there are failures during emergency combat maneuvers or extremely strenuous unplanned maneuvers caused by forces beyond our control. Each of our ships had some compensators blown when we came through the anomaly and ended up in the Delta quadrant for the first time.'

The scientists all nodded, realizing what she was talking about. They had all read the theoretical material related to how the Clan had originally found themselves in the Delta quadrant, though none of them were particularly concerned with explaining that occurrence. They had all been much too busy in their own specialized fields of study as they worked on trying to figure out and exploit the potential of the new technology and scientific ideas that had been recently given to them by the Clan.

K'ehlynn was much less intrigued by their movements than either Dr. Nakamura or Tahl'mahn, the Romulan. Her own field of expertise dealt with cloaking technology, and she wasn't seeing the Clan do anything to maintain their stealth or anything else to hide themselves from detection inside the system.

'Your stealth doesn't require monitoring to keep the systems within parameters?'

Laura shook her head. 'Not really. Most of the systems and redundancies are built into the ships. We actually have to turn systems off to make our ships visible to most other species. Occasionally an emitter goes out or we have to replace some of the hardware, but that's usually discovered by the automatic testing before it becomes a problem.'

K'ehlynn nodded, realizing how much they relied on preventive maintenance and automated testing systems to reduce the actual need for someone to physically check on everything to make sure that it was running properly. And they had redundant systems for almost everything that she could think of, so there was very little chance of every system failing at the same time so long as a Clan ship had power.

Nakamura spoke up. 'How much stress do your compensators have to handle for maneuvers that are done in real space? You know, where you don't enter hyper at all?'

Laura smiled. 'On a fleet ship, there really aren't many things that cause stress to compensators while we're in real space. Getting hit by a railgun barrage is about the only thing that I can think of that really qualifies as far as what I think you mean by your question. Our microjumps stress the compensators, and all evasive maneuvers that a fleet ship does, such as shooting and then shifting positions, are accomplished by very small microjumps. Only a few light seconds to maybe thirty light seconds. Nothing that takes the compensators out of the green or really stresses them all that much.'

'And what would happen if Voyager tried to do a thirty second microjump?'

'The ship would be totally destroyed, and everyone on it would die. Even with the structural reinforcements that we added with the additional internal supports and the hull armor, Voyager is too small and too lightly armored to withstand that type of stress. Your inertial dampeners aren't strong enough, and neither are the structural integrity fields that we helped them boost.'

Nakamura nodded, looking thoughtful. 'And what about the other ships that we have?'

Laura thought about that. 'From what I remember, the tech geeks went over that, and decided that if they had one of the larger ships, say a battleship or a battle frigate, that was built from scratch and had all of the best materials in it, if you doubled or tripled the strength of the structural integrity fields and build in redundant safeties to cover for a field failure, the ship would survive it if the hull armor was at least fifty meters thick and made of the best materials we've shown you how to build. Though you'd have to do tests to see how safe it was to jump like that again before checking and replacing any of your components that were worn or showing signs of stress.'

Nakamura smiled brightly. 'Ah, I understand now. Thank you for the data. I shall go over this and examine the schematics for the new ships, then make recommendations to StarFleet and the other Alliance members.'

Laura nodded, then signaled that they were ready for the next jump. The scientists were all watching intently now that they knew it was going to happen, and they were suddenly even farther from DS9 and closer to the hyper point that they were headed for. It would only take them several more hours to reach that hyper point at this rate, but the scientists were getting too much good information to worry about how long this trip was taking.

By the time that they were approaching the hyper point, Kahmmhi and the Alliance representatives were all gathered together so that they could watch the first entry into hyper that any of them had ever experienced. There wasn't going to be any light show, but they wouldn't know about that, and it wasn't as if the view of the light show was even all that spectacular, even on ships that didn't dampen the neutrino flux when you were on board the ship that was entering hyper itself.

When they finally entered hyper, there wasn't much to see except the interior of the hyper stream. The members of the various factions discussed it among themselves, but didn't get all that worked up over it simply because it didn't seem like all that big a deal to them.

'What are those huge chunks of material that look like rocks?'

'Antimatter.'

That comment immediately got the undivided attention of everyone in the room who was from the Alliance. 'Antimatter? But those are huge rocks. How could there possibly be that much antimatter here?'

Krohn smiled. 'Antimatter lines the walls of all of the hyper streams. Some of it is almost a dust-like or even particulate consistency, and some of it is larger chunks.'

Jadzia shook her head in amazement. 'Amazing. It's almost like traveling in warp, only you can't see anything except the walls of the hyper stream around us.'

Lyhssyha smiled. 'We can show you vid of what hyperspace looks like when you aren't inside a hyper stream if you're interested.'

Jadzia and the others nodded, and Lyhssyha pulled up the vid on the large wall monitor that they were all looking at. The representatives were all amazed at how empty and bleak hyperspace looked. It was all a black void except for the shining, twisting snakes that seemed to be writhing all over the place in the video screen.

'What are those large, brightly lit moving things that look like writhing snakes?'

'Hyper streams. They're only connected at fixed points at their termini in the various systems that they are connected to. Either at the ends, or at branch points for large, long, branching streams. In between their fixed points, they're very flexible and they tend to move around a lot. That is why you only navigate in hyperspace through the hyper streams. Outside of them, there are no fixed reference points to let you know how far you've traveled or how to maintain a particular heading, and it's easy to get lost. Also, trying to calculate distance and direction are extremely problematic, since you can't determine an exact correlation between any given point in hyperspace and a corresponding point in real space. The only exception is the termini that connect to systems, and even if you've mapped them and have an accurate hyper map, you still can't determine which hyper stream is which while you're in hyperspace outside of them.'

Councillor McNamara nodded. 'That would definitely make navigation difficult.'

They all watched things for a while, then gradually lost interest. Kahmmhi nodded, smiling at them. 'Yeah, after a while, travel in hyper gets really boring. Get used to it. The view isn't going to change for a very long time. We won't reach the next system for four days.'

She got up and left, leaving them to relax and do whatever they wanted.

On the bridge, Virginia was seeing a much more animated reaction from the scientific experts who were there to collect data. They were amazed at what their instruments were detecting, and were absolutely astounded by the amount of antimatter that they were detecting inside the hyper stream.

'There is so much antimatter here. I can't believe how much there is. Are you sure that this is safe?'

Laura smiled. 'Our shields are much stronger than anything that you have, and our armor is much thicker than even the ships that we gave you and you rebuilt. We have been using hyper for millennia.'

The experts nodded, realizing that she wasn't kidding or exaggerating at all about how long the Clans had been going through hyper, and that there were literally at least some people on board this ship who had been traveling through hyper streams for millennia.

'The only things that I can detect in the stream with us are the other two Clan ships.'

'Yes, but those aren't even detectable by our best sensors.'

Dr. Nakamura looked at K'ehlynn, then nodded. 'Yes. Even in hyper, we can't detect their ships.'

'Even if we used antimatter at a rate that was orders of magnitude greater than our current capacity, the amount of antimatter in this single hyper stream would power every planet and ship that we have for millennia.'

Dr. Michaelson nodded, still studying his instrumentation carefully.

Tahl'mahn and Nakamura began quietly discussing how much power they could generate for their propulsion systems using the new gravitic drives by adjusting the flow rate of antimatter through the power systems that they had received from the Clan.

'Structural considerations and inertial compensators really are the limiting factors on how fast we can make our ships. And with the maneuverability that the use of gravitic engines provides, we really need to do as much as we can to improve our compensators. The better, stronger, and more durable our compensators are, the easier it will be for us to utilize our maneuverability to its fullest capability.'

Koryll looked at the two of them and shook his head. 'Unless we improve our systems considerably, we will not be able to even begin to compete with the capabilities of the Clan.'

Nakamura nodded. 'That is correct. There is a significant level of difference between Clan inertial compensators and the inertial dampeners that we use. Though I'm certain that the new designs and scientific breakthroughs that Voyager has to offer us will help us at least decrease that technological and performance gap somewhat.'

The scientists kept discussing their readings for several hours before they finally got enough data to satisfy all of them. It would take them several days to go over all of the data and analyze it completely, and they'd also have lots of data to examine when they went over the Clan system logs and analyzed all of the readings that the Clan had concerning the inertial stresses that their compensators underwent during their entry into hyperspace.

The Alliance science experts were deeply involved in their discussion over what they had learned so far about hyperspace and what it would require for their ships to operate safely there.

'The initial stresses of entering and leaving hyperspace seem to be manageable enough, especially considering the structural modifications that we can make to our existing craft that have already been given improved armor. But we are going to have to custom build any existing craft that are smaller than the battle frigates if we expect them to be capable of surviving evasive maneuvers using the gravitic engines.'

Tahl'mahn nodded. 'Nakamura is correct. We can't use microjumps through hyper to take evasive actions, but doing evasive maneuvers in real space using the gravitic engines is going to cause intense stresses on our ships as well. The materials that we normally use for structural integrity aren't strong enough to handle those stresses, but if we use the newer materials and construction methods that Clan synthesizers make possible, our ships will hold up to the stresses.'

'But we also need to increase the number of structural integrity field emitters and their signal strength in order to have a safety margin.'

'Yes, we do. But we can do that. Without having to worry so much about how much energy it would take to make the resources that are required to build, armor, and reinforce our ships, we can devote enough resources to the projects to do them properly the first time.'

The other experts nodded, realizing that they could use the vast resources of antimatter that were available in hyperspace to overcome a lot of problems that had limited the growth and development of their societies and civilization in the Alpha quadrant as a whole. The availability of clean energy would no longer be a major limiting concern.

K'ehlynn looked at the others and shook her head almost sadly. 'This must be what the records indicate the Clan was worried about. Kahmmhi repeatedly told our leaders that giving us too much technology at one time could cause a lot of problems for our societies simply because they would lead to such sudden, drastic changes in our social structure and science that it would cause stresses that could threaten the stability of our cultures.'

'We can minimize the damage. If for no other reason than we know that the possibility of such problems is real, and we can do our best to minimize their impact. However, we can still use the improvements that this newly acquired technology permits us to make to improve the overall standard of living for everyone in our cultures.'

Michaelson nodded. 'Now all we have to do is make sure that our political leaders know what this means, and what improvements it can make possible for our cultures, both individually and as an alliance.'

The other experts nodded, realizing that doing something like that wasn't going to be as easy as it sounded. They had learned long ago that their political and governmental leaders sometimes had their own agendas, and that they generally heard what they wanted to hear when they were told about scientific limitations, expecting the scientists to overcome any problems or real limitations in order to accomplish what they wanted to be done. And things were even more complicated when they had to deal with certain members in the military faction, since their own goals were often far different than those of the civilian political leadership as a whole. Which only made sense, since they were called upon to defend their society from threats that didn't obey the laws and regulations of their society under normal conditions.

Tahl'mahn sighed. 'We can do more for the military right away than we can for our societies as a whole. Not only because of the obvious military applications, but also because it is easier to devote the resources to such a limited endeavor in a short time frame than it is to distribute the new technology to everyone else in the entire alliance.'

'We can reduce the time that it would take to do that, but it will still be as much as several decades before everyone has access to all of the improvements that the new technology will make possible.'

K'ehlynn grinned. 'I can hardly wait to see how the politicians take this news.'

Andersson nodded as they finished listening to the presentation that was being made by the scientific experts. 'Yes, we all understand that the first use of such new technology must be limited to making whatever upgrades are necessary to our military, and that only after we do that can we begin making the technology and its benefits available to the general population. What we're wondering about is the time lag that we're talking about here.'

'Probably no more than a few decades at most. It will take about a decade to construct new ships or to rebuild our existing ships and make the modifications that we need to make on them, as well as to begin construction of some of the support ships that would make collecting antimatter and exploring hyper feasible on a much larger scale. Then we could begin expanding that scale and making the improvements available to the general population as it became feasible.'

Mek'Vihm nodded thoughtfully, then spoke. 'Some of the smaller, more remote colony worlds should be put into a higher priority than some of the more populated worlds, though.'

'Why is that?' Andersson was very curious to understand that reasoning.

'Since they are smaller and have a much smaller population and technological base, just a little bit of resources would make the entire colony much more capable of being self sufficient and maintaining that level of technology on their own as they grew and expanded. Their surplus could allow them to trade profitably with other worlds much more quickly, and they could even supply some of the new technology to other worlds as part of their trade goods.'

Sanchez nodded. 'He has a point. If it took a million units to outfit all of the residences on Earth, and we weren't able to get everyone to upgrade at the same time, it could drag out forever. But a million units scattered out over hundreds of less populated planets would make them all self sufficient to a great degree, and allow them to become much more capable of contributing to our technological growth, rather than being a drain on the other planets that typically have a much higher level of technology and standard of living simply because they have a larger and stronger economic and population base. The colonies wouldn't be so hard pressed for materials, energy, and resources, and wouldn't be stuck struggling to become self sufficient for nearly so long as they are currently.'

'Very well. We'll be sure to take that into consideration, and make sure that the entire Council understands what that could mean and why we suggested it in the first place.'

'This could change the standard of living on a very large number of planets in the Federation, and make many planets that we would previously consider marginal at best much more appealing for settlement.'

Krang nodded. 'All of us could benefit greatly from this new technology. As more resources become available to support the technology, we will be able to utilize it more effectively and make it more widely available. Just the fact that we can build structures that will last at least ten times longer than our current structures do means that we will be able to devote more of our resources to expansion and current needs in other areas rather than in rebuilding or maintaining what we have already built. And that on planets where there are weather or tectonic concerns for buildings, the new construction would be much stronger and capable of withstanding much more stress than anything that we can currently afford to build.'

Hargrave spoke up. 'And what does that mean militarily, Ambassador Krang?'

'While it takes much more energy and resources to build one of the ships that we are currently starting to use as our main fleet, the ships are much more energy efficient, are actually capable of gathering all of the resources and energy required to maintain and repair themselves, and can even gather extra resources that can be used elsewhere or be used to expand the fleet. That is how the Clan manages to live and operate in space. And the ships are much more durable, so we wouldn't have to do as much to repair them after combat. We're much less likely to lose ships in combat, and much less likely to have to replace entire ships and crews than we currently are or were before our contact with the Clan.'

Hargrave nodded, realizing what that meant. Fewer casualties, fewer deaths, and more repairs rather than having to replace entire ships. And the repairs that they did have to make would probably be less extensive and serious than they would have been otherwise. Everything was coming out better with the new technology.

Krang continued talking. 'And instead of having to retire ships because they are old and outdated, unless we make significant advances in our ships, minor repairs and upgrades will keep them functional for hundreds of years at the very least. Kahmmhi says that some Clan ships have operated continuously for millennia.'

Buckingham looked around, then decided to go ahead and ask what he wanted to know. 'So, what you're saying is that the new technology will improve all of our lives eventually, and will make the worlds in our alliance safer?'

'Yes.'

'And what will the new improvements that the Clan is offering to help us with actually mean?'

Nakamura stood to answer the question. 'That depends on how we decide to modify our own ships, but from what we've learned, it would be most prudent to keep our current warp engines, at least until we can figure out how to power our ships without them. But while we may need to use the warp engines for propulsion at faster than light speeds in real space, we could eliminate almost all of our plasma conduits. The only plasma we would need would be limited to a small, recirculating system that powered the warp nacelles themselves, since Clan antimatter reactors are not only more efficient, but harness the energy and release it in a more usable form without using plasma.'

Most of the others in the room stared at her as they realized what that would mean, especially in terms of safety throughout the ships. No more plasma conduit ruptures, no more plasma fires, and no more plasma burns. Or at least so few of them that they would become so rare as to be almost unheard of.

'Our impulse engines are essentially obsolete, and they are definitely not worth retaining. Gravitic drives don't actually require fuel, work on a much simpler basis, and are capable of exceeding the best speeds that we can get out of impulse engines. They are much more reliable, less prone to mechanical failures, and are much simpler to fix or replace. In fact, using the synthesizer technology that we already have, even we, with our limited synthesizer capabilities, could make our ships completely self sufficient. If a single ship wasn't capable of repairing itself, one or a few other ships would provide enough capabilities to effect almost any repairs, short of entirely rebuilding the ship, without having to bring the ship into a starbase or a space dock for repairs or total rebuilding.'

The reporters looked impressed, as did most of the others in the room.

'Gravitic engines are safe to use inside the hyper streams, so we don't have to worry about them. We can't build hyper drives like the Clan has because we don't have the ability to build ships that can withstand the stresses that they would be subjected to, and we simply can't build anything that is the functional equivalent of Clan inertial compensators. Our own inertial dampeners and structural integrity fields can allow us to use some of the capabilities that Clan tech allows them to use, but not others. The best that we can currently build are very weak copies of the Clan inertial compensators. They work well enough to handle the stresses in ships that are built to the standards that the Clan gave us because they don't have to waste as much of the energy providing structural reinforcement to the materials, and can use it to provide enhancements to the artificial gravity inside the ship instead.'

'And what about the stealth systems?'

'We can adapt them to work on any of the ships that we build according to Clan designs or similar designs. It isn't anywhere near as good as that of the Clan ships, but it is at least one or two orders of magnitude better than even the cloaking system that Voyager's experts worked out on their own in the Delta quadrant, and that was at least twice as good as the hybrid cloaking technology that we worked out after the Dominion war.'

'When will we get to meet with the crew of the Voyager, or at least meet with the experts who made all of the discoveries that are going to be used to improve our technology?'

Everyone turned to look at Fitzsimmons.

McNamara smiled. 'We are meeting with them after we get to the system that we're heading to. Two more days in hyper. They are already working on organizing all of their notes and data so that they can present it to us, and then they will spend time with our experts going over all of the details. After that, probably after we return to the Bajoran system, we will all discuss it as a group and the scientific experts will explain how they made the various improvements and how we are going to be able to use them to make the changes that the Clan says are now possible with our current technology and the information that they are willing to give us this time.'

Everyone seemed satisfied with that answer. After some more discussions concerning minor matters that most of them weren't interested in going over right then in detail, the meeting ended. Tomorrow would be the Clan's rest day, and they'd get to see how everyone relaxed and how the Clan members lived when they weren't doing their jobs.

Remal looked at the small Clan woman in shock. 'You want to do what?'

'We can just use demolition charges on buildings that you don't want to keep, and use the rubble as raw materials for the synthesizers. Just make sure that you remove anything that you want to keep, and we'll take down the rest around the areas that you've designated as important and begin building.'

'I'm not sure that this is what we had in mind when we agreed to your plan. You didn't do anything like this on the other continent when you put up the compounds that were used to house the Dominion prisoners.'

'We were building on unsettled land, so there wasn't anything there but raw materials. We can build outside of your current locations if you wish, but we were told that we were supposed to keep your main towns and other population centers located pretty much where they already were. That means that we have to take down at least some of the buildings to replace them with others. And we don't generally build up very far from the ground. We don't actually build anything on rocks other than basic towns and shelters for those that we're leaving there, and they're mostly just prisoners of war that we didn't kill or freed slaves who have a relatively small population to begin settlements on new worlds of their own. There generally aren't enough of them to need to worry about building large cities with skyscrapers or huge buildings to house thousands of people at one time.'

Remal nodded. 'Yes, I see your point.' He looked at the building plans and sighed. 'OK. I concur with your overall plan, but could we do it in stages so that we can tear down one part of town, build its replacement, and then move to the next section?'

'Yes. That isn't any problem for us. Just make sure that all of the sites that you want to retain in their current state are clearly marked. We are not responsible for any mistakes on anything that wasn't designated for retention.'

Remal went over the plan carefully, comparing the list of sites on the map to the ones on his own list. 'All of the sites are clearly marked, and all of them are correct. I've confirmed your surveys and your maps, and I authorize you to begin the first phase of the construction on this city. When should the people be out of their current homes?'

'You let us know. That's your problem to deal with. We begin when we hear from you that the area is clear and secure, and we're not responsible for anyone who wanders into the construction zone during blasting or the actual rebuilding phase.'

'Agreed. Give us two days to clear everyone from this section of the city, and we'll let you know when it's clear.'

Mara nodded. 'Very well. What about the four other sites?'

'Send me the detailed maps on all of them, and I'll go over them, verify them, and approve the plans. The local representatives of our government will act as liaisons with the local Clan construction crews at each site. There are likely to be less problems that way, since they will be on site all of the time and will be able to see everything that is happening firsthand.'

'Good enough. I'll wait for your call, and my crews will be ready.'

Everyone from the various groups was surprised by their first impression of the Clan rest day. While they hadn't all been expecting to find or see the same things, none of them were really prepared for what they saw when they entered the large meeting area aboard the Rolling Thunder.

'There are so many of them, and there's so much activity. I thought that this was their day of rest.'

Kyra smiled. 'They're relaxing. They're not on duty, and they're not working. This is what they do to blow off steam.'

Krang nodded. 'They seem to be very active. What types of sports do they engage in?'

Jadzia smiled, realizing what the Klingon wanted to know. She spoke to him quickly in Klingon, telling him that there were areas where the Clan members sparred and participated in matches of skill and combat prowess. Krang and the Klingon expert went off to look for it, followed by the Romulan and his science expert.

'What did you tell them that made them so interested in your response, and then caused them to just leave?'

'That there is an area where Clan members spar and compete in contests of strength and skill. They were interested in watching, or so I assume from their reactions.'

Admiral Thompson nodded, and began working her own way toward the same area.

Virginia approached them, smiling as she greeted them. 'Ah, I see that some members of your party have already wandered off on their own to enjoy the fun. Welcome. Feel free to mix, mingle, or just wander around and observe. I must warn you not to try to participate in some of the contests. For your own safety. But you can check with the vendors and they'll make sure that any food that you wish to sample isn't toxic to your species. Though we can't guarantee that there won't be any reactions caused by food allergies or individual tolerances. We do have the basics for each of your species in our database after our last visit here. Except for the Andorean expert. We didn't scan any Andoreans during our last visit, and I'm not sure if they were included in any of the medical databases that we were given or not.'

Koryll nodded. 'I will be careful, though most foods that are safe for humans can be tolerated, at least in small amounts, by my own species.'

Virginia nodded. 'I am relieved to hear that.' She looked at the reporters. 'Feel free to record anything that you see or hear in here today. And don't worry about violating any laws, customs, or taboos. Though I should warn you that you will see some nudity if you go near the dunking booths, and possibly in a few other places if there are any really rough wrestling matches going on. It won't bother us if you film it, but we have heard that some of your social values are different from ours in certain areas, and public nudity is one of them.'

Richards nodded, looking at the press members that she was responsible for. 'Any other warnings that we should know about?'

Virginia shook her head. 'None that Kahmmhi told me about. If you follow the rules that you were given during our previous visit, you should be perfectly safe. And since everyone knows that you're not Clan, they're not going to just attack you if you do something wrong. About the only thing that I can think of that would trigger some type of automatic response would be to either attempt to or threaten to rape a female. If someone wasn't around to stop them, the automatic response might cause some embarrassment or some type of incident. But we would give your head and body back to your government, rather than simply spacing it as garbage like we generally do.'

Richards blanched, and so did most of the others in the group. That was one warning that was very clearly spelled out in all briefings concerning the Clan and their customs and laws. Just as it was clearly spelled out that they were a very aggressive, warlike, warrior society, regardless of their level of technology and their other scientific capabilities. Even their civilians had been put through a form of training that, while the Clan called it Basic, made them much more capable of violence than most Klingon warriors.

'If you would care to have a guide to accompany you and explain anything to you or answer any questions that you have, we will be happy to provide one for you. Otherwise, please feel free to wander around and get to know more about us on your own. Kahmmhi will be having her main meal of the day sometime this afternoon, and it's very informal. You are all welcome to join her and enjoy the fare, or to eat whatever appeals to you at any of the vendors. Or you can find a synthesizer and eat whatever appeals to you. Our synthesizers should have at least some food in them that are from your cultures.'

Virginia waited until they told her that they didn't need guides, bid them a good day, and wandered off to enjoy her own day off. The Federation representatives slowly broke up and began wandering off in different directions as well.

Kyra and Jadzia grabbed Miles by the arm and dragged him off to watch some of the matches that they knew about. They hadn't wasted their own time during their visits to Clan ships when the Clan was in the Bajoran system the first time, and knew much more about what was going on around them than any of the others who had come there with them. As they were wandering around, they ran into some of the people from Voyager and began talking and watching the events that were going on around them.

Kyra shook her head. 'I don't envy you having to deal with all of those politicians.'

B'elana nodded. 'Only a few of us have to deal with them directly. Or, at least, that's what they say for now. Right now they're only interested in the technology that the Clan is willing to give them, and what we can tell them about how to maximize its efficacy for our systems.'

'And you're the unlucky few who had to come along for this trip?'

Paris smiled. 'Oh, come, now, B'elana. It's not as bad as all that. You only have to give them the engineering data and structural specs, and most of that is pretty self explanatory.'

B'elana rolled her eyes and gave Tom an exasperated look. 'For the engines and armoring, maybe. But I've already heard that they want us to explain everything about the changes that we made to the ship on our own BEFORE the Clan arrived, and that includes all of the modifications that we made to the ship to develop our own cloaking device and the drive systems that we developed on our own before the Clan helped us modify and upgrade the ship.'

Paris looked surprised. 'Oh. Damn, they're wanting to know everything and then some.'

'Exactly. And then I have to go into the modifications that we made for structural integrity, how we modified the gravitic drives that we had originally developed, and how the new stealth systems work and how they interface with all of our sensors and equipment.'

'Well, don't be so upset. We didn't exactly get out of being grilled ourselves.'

'What do you mean?'

Seven raised her eyebrows and gave B'elana a look of suffering through tedium. 'We not only have to explain all of our theoretical and practical work on discovering and utilizing the hyper points, but we also have to give them detailed explanations of all of our work on hyperspace theories and go over all of the hyper maps that we have with them.'

Tom nodded. 'And since I've trained with the Clan, we have to go over all of the maneuvers and tactics that are typically used in Clan warfare, and how effectively we can utilize those same techniques with the modified small craft that we were given by the Clan. We can do some pretty amazing maneuvers without stressing our inertial dampeners because of the intense structural integrity of the small craft, but we still have to watch the stresses or we risk losing the crew and having the ship drifting through space until someone salvages it.'

'OK, so I'm not the only one who has to go over a lot of stuff with the experts. But I'm still nervous. K'ehlynn is one of the foremost experts on cloaking theory in the entire Klingon Empire.'

Miles smiled. 'Don't let yourself be threatened or intimidated by her reputation or accomplishments. From what I've seen and heard, your own accomplishments are astounding, especially with the limited resources that you had to work with. Besides, if she was so smart, why didn't she come up with the same idea or a better one on her own? They've been working with Clan tech and trying to figure out how Clan stealth works for a decade now. Ever since the Dominion war ended.'

B'elana nodded, considering that point. Then she looked happier, and smiled at O'Brien. 'You're right. We did good work, and if they don't like it, then they should get to work and do better themselves. Thank you.'

'No problem. I've always thought that those who created new developments in the labs were great, but there's nothing like being in the field and actually working with the systems under real conditions to make you intimately familiar with all of the shortcomings and limitations that need to be overcome to get the maximum performance out of your systems that is occasionally required by the situation.'

Seven smiled, turning her head slowly to look at Chief O'Brien. 'You have obviously dealt with the Clan enough to know how they think.'

O'Brien chuckled. 'To know how they think? Not quite. But to know that they take anything that we've ever done and improve it by one or two orders of magnitude, then stress it to its limits and devise ways to push the envelope on performance even further? Yeah, I've seen enough of their stuff to know that much.'

The six of them chatted amiably and watched the activities around them as they wandered around the area. All of them had spent some time on Clan ships before, so they weren't overwhelmed by the activities or the abilities of the Clan members that they were watching.

'So, did you actually spend much time on the Clan ships during your journey back here?'

'Oh, yeah. We came over to go over lots of things, spent time here to make it easier than traveling back and forth would have been, and even did some training here at different times. What about you guys?'

Jadzia sighed. 'We spent some time visiting with them, but most of our interactions were with Kahmmhi and her Shadows on board DS9. Even that was overwhelming at times.'

Kyra smiled. 'Hey, B'elana, did Kahmmhi or her Shadows ever tell you about the time that she broke some Nosikan that was harassing her and calling her a Vulcan?'

'No.' B'elana smiled. 'But I'll bet that the fight didn't last long. I know that Clan members are very strong, and I know that Kahmmhi is very fast. She got injected by a Borg drone who was trying to assimilate Captain Janeway. Her brother backhanded it into a bulkhead and broke it. Probably saved it some suffering. Their nanobots are lethal to the Borg. Kahmmhi didn't even get sick. Her bots just ate the Borg bots within a few hours.'

'Damn.'

Kyra described the incident with the Nosikans to them in detail. When she was finished, Jadzia described the duel that Kahmmhi had had with the Romulan. When she finished, none of them spoke for a moment.

Paris finally broke the silence. 'That sounds almost as bad as some of the things that I've seen on the video of her grandfather in combat.'

'Yeah, well, according to Kahmmhi, the two things don't even really begin to compare.'

Seven nodded. 'You are probably correct. All of the video that I have seen of her grandfather in combat is highly disturbing, and they said that the video didn't even include some of the more impressive things that Kohl-garh has done in combat.' She shook her head and looked very disturbed. 'Some of the things that I have actually seen Clan warriors do routinely in training are beyond even the capabilities of the most highly modified Borg combat drones that I've ever seen, and they have all of the best cybernetic enhancements possible.'

B'elana nodded. 'Even the smaller Clan warriors are much stronger than a Borg drone. Max is so big and strong that he actually broke a Borg drone accidentally, and he says that he is nowhere close to Kohl-garh's size and strength.'

Jadzia nodded. 'Yeah, he would know. I talked to him a few times during their last visit, and he was trained by Kohl-garh and his Shadows while they were with Clan Silver Dragon. Max is one of the best assault warriors in their entire Clan.'

Miles looked at his comp and smiled broadly. 'Something tells me that it's time for lunch.'

Jadzia rolled her eyes. 'Yeah. I can smell the barbecue from here.'

Tom laughed. 'And the hot peppers. Krohn is definitely going to enjoy his meal.'

'Well, what are we waiting for? I'm sure that the dignitaries will be there shortly, but we can at least eat, even if we can't really stay and chat while they're there talking to Kahmmhi.'

The others nodded, agreeing with O'Brien, and they headed off to get something to eat.

The dignitaries were already arriving in small groups by the time that Jadzia and the others got to the area where Kahmmhi and her Shadows had set up to eat. Since she was busy, they quickly got some food and went over to talk with some of the other Clan members who were present. Max, his wife Fleur, and some others that they all knew were there, so they were able to sit and enjoy chatting while they ate a leisurely, relaxing meal. They didn't eat anywhere near the amount of food that Clan warriors did, so they didn't have to eat the entire time.

While they were relaxing, most of the other dignitaries were eating and talking with Kahmmhi, Virginia, and her exec, Laura. There were a few other Clan members there as well, but they didn't talk much with the visitors. Marlena Hargrave and her cameraman chose to sit near the group that was with Max and film them, while the other reporters remained with the main group and recorded whatever caught their attention.

Andersson looked at Virginia curiously. 'You haven't really said what we can expect when we get to the system that we're heading to.'

'Kahmmhi wanted it to be a surprise.'

'Can you at least tell us how far it is from the Bajoran system?'

'Four days by hyper.'

Sanchez smiled and laughed politely. 'Yes, we understand that. Can you convert that to light years or some other useful measurement of distance?'

Virginia smiled. 'We don't generally use linear measurements of distance between star systems. How long it takes us to get to a system by hyper is the only useful measure of distance that the Clan generally uses when talking about traveling from one system to another. We use light minutes and light seconds, or sometimes kliks when we're talking about distances inside a system, depending on whether we're talking about using gravitic drives or hyper jumping within the system.'

'So you don't even know or care how far it is by warp?'

'We don't use warp. It's way too dangerous and destructive a method of propulsion, and it takes way too much time to get from one system to another. Even the Consortium never developed warp travel, though they did run into some species that used it before they conquered and enslaved them. Records indicate that the Tryx never used warp because they realized how dangerous it was while they were still exploring the theoretical limitations and applications of the system. The Clans never bothered to do anything more than to improve on the existing systems that were available when we regained advanced technological capabilities more than six millennia ago.'

Councillor McNamara smiled. 'Does the Clan have any way of estimating the distance using star maps?'

'Sure. But you'd have to talk to someone who specializes in stellar cartography to get that kind of information. Other than special circumstances where we have to go someplace that doesn't have a hyper point, we never use that kind of information other than to help us find the nearest place that we know DOES have a hyper point that we've mapped before.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Clan Phoenix used to use that type of information quite frequently until just recently. It was safer for them to travel outside of hyperspace and avoid the known, mapped hyper points when they were operating deep inside enemy territory. Since the Consortium only used hyper to travel between most systems, it allowed them to bypass all of the enemy patrols and security measures and enter enemy systems completely undetected. That was before they developed and perfected their stealth technology, of course. They used to go to a nearby system and then cross real space to attack a target system without any warning whatsoever. The Consortium never knew how to track them. They had no way of knowing how they were getting from one place to another, and didn't even know if it was the same Clan attacking them.'

'But wouldn't that make them more vulnerable to attack, and allow the enemy to bring fleets into nearby systems and trap them where they couldn't escape into hyperspace?'

Virginia and Laura both laughed, and Kahmmhi's lilting laughter was joined by that of her Llyriana Shadows. 'Our ships have much faster gravitic drives and much better inertial compensators. We routinely do multiple microjumps that far exceed the safety limitations of any Consortium ship ever made. If they tried to keep up with us, they'd blow up their own ships. And any Clan could string the enemy fleets that tried to follow them out and attack the fleet that they wanted to before leaving the area. They would have to choose between remaining close enough to support each other and remaining close enough to keep track of us.'

Virginia smiled. 'Yeah. The enemy learned their lesson the hard way at Pehnt Drohvi. Kohl-garh had a much smaller and weaker Clan then, but his fleet totally wiped out five Consortium war fleets and still got away. He took heavy losses doing it, but he succeeded, and he kept his Clan alive. They recovered on their own, and rebuilt their fleet while he spent the next five hundred years raiding deep into the heart of Consortium territory.'

Thompson nodded. 'His fleet was several hundred ships at least, wasn't it?'

Virginia nodded. 'Yes. About a hundred heavy cruisers, which are two kliks long and one klik in diameter. There were also several hundred light cruisers, which were about two thirds of that size, several hundred large scouts, which were about half that size, and several hundred small scouts, which are much smaller. Half a klik long and a quarter of a klik in diameter. Perhaps just over a thousand ships in his fleet, which was considered large by Clan standards at the time.'

The dignitaries looked surprised, since the ships that she was talking about were equivalent to more than the entire Federation fleet. And a single Clan had contained that amount of firepower several millennia ago. Long before any of the Federation species or any of the other species that they knew of and dealt with regularly had even been in space.

Kahmmhi smiled at their expressions. 'The six smallest ships in our scout claw outmass the hundred heavy cruisers that my grandfather had in his fleet at that time. The two scout assault carriers probably outmass his entire fleet, including his Home Fleet.'

That comparison put everything into perspective for all of the dignitaries. Troy's Clan had been one of the largest that they had ever built several millennia ago, and now even a small Clan probably had more people and more firepower than Troy's Clan had contained at that time. And there were even more Clans now than there had been several millennia ago. They had been given enough details of Clan history to know that much.

Virginia nodded. 'Yes. And he faced fifty Consortium battleships, each thirty kliks long and ten kliks in diameter, with lasers and railguns that were much more powerful than the most powerful Clan weapons, and with greater range as well. Then there were the more than seven hundred enemy battlecruisers, each six kliks long and two kliks in diameter, and the two thousand or so heavy and light cruisers that the enemy had acting as a screen for their fleets. And a couple of hundred assault platforms for launching large numbers of fighters and assault shuttles filled with troops to board the Clan ships. The Consortium forces managed to board the Clan Phoenix Home Fleet at least five times during the course of that long, running battle. It did last several weeks.'

Thompson was more than impressed with the information that she'd just heard. She had been briefed as fully as possible before her departure, and the experts who had briefed her had included as much information as they had on the Clan, including everything that they knew about all of the battles that had been discussed during the Clan's previous stay in the Bajoran system. Federation Security was extremely interested in learning as much as they could about the Clan, whether they posed any real risk to the security of the Federation or not. The Clan hadn't ever really threatened the Federation or any other member of the Alliance, but everyone knew that their technological and other advantages were so great that even Kahmmhi's small force could wipe out the entire Federation and every other organized group in the entire Alpha quadrant if even a small percentage of their claims about the capabilities of certain types of weapons were true. Just the Q-bombs that they had openly demonstrated during the Dominion war would wipe out large areas of planets with a single strike, and could deal undreamt of damage to the best fleets that could possibly be pitted against them, even after they had helped the Alliance rebuild and improve the best and largest enemy ships that had been captured in the Bajoran system. Their small craft were more than capable of taking out individual starships on their own, so they had the forces available to more than match the combined forces of every fleet in the quadrant. And with the recently acquired data that the entire planet that had been the home of the Founders had been completely destroyed, she knew that the Clan had not exaggerated any of their capabilities. If anything, they had played down their destructive potential in order to keep from needlessly scaring everyone around them.

As the warriors talked with the Federation personnel and Alliance members, Hargrave noticed that all of them got along quite well with the Clan.

'Pardon me, but you all seem to get along quite well, and talk almost as if you are old friends. I know that the crew of the Voyager did just spend a long time interacting with you quite frequently, but I don't understand how you seem to know so much about each other when you only spent a short time in the Bajoran system during your previous visit.'

Max smiled. 'Ah. We met and got to know the personnel who were aboard DS9 in the months that we waited for any Federation representatives to arrive and talk with us. It was kind of boring with no combat going on, and we were on board DS9 quite frequently to spend time training in their holodecks, so we got to know some of the personnel who we interacted with most frequently.' He chuckled. 'And we did get to spend some time in combat and enjoy sharing that experience with them.'

Fleur snorted. 'That skirmish wasn't any more realistic than a freaking training exercise in Basic.'

Max smiled and put his arm around her shoulder. 'Now, dear, they don't train like that, and they've never really had to go to war. They don't have to worry about threats like the Consortium.'

Hargrave stared at the Clan members, but none of the personnel with them bothered to raise any objections to their statements, and that confused her.

'I would think that at least one of you would object to that statement and explain to them that we have been involved in wars. Long, deadly, bloody conflicts in the past.'

B'elana shook her head. 'Even the worst wars between the Klingon and Romulan empires wasn't as bad as some of the small battles that we've seen from their records. And while there were a lot of ships involved in the Dominion war's climactic battle at DS9, even that wasn't all that impressive by Clan standards.'

'Can you explain that?'

Jadzia sighed. 'Think of it this way. They have been constantly at war with the very same enemy for millennia. Their enemy controls at least most of five different galaxies, or they did at the start of the war. Three completely, and expanding into two others. And every time that one of their fleets is engaged in a major battle with their enemy, it isn't simply their fleet that is in jeopardy of being destroyed. Each Clan moves around in space like a nomadic tribe, and their women, their children, and everything that they own is in either their war fleet or their Home Fleet. If they lose a battle, it could literally mean the destruction of their entire Clan. Even in the very beginning, when their fleets were fewer, smaller, and weaker, the same thing applied. They almost lost one Clan at the end of their first millennium of conflict, but Clan Phoenix managed to save it and help them rebuild their Clan and their fleet. As time passed, each Clan kept getting bigger and bigger before it split to form another Clan, making sure that they were both stronger in the process. But as they grew, it took less and less time for each Clan to grow large enough to form another Clan, and they became better at fighting their enemy as their strength and experience grew.'

'OK. But that still doesn't mean that we've never really experienced warfare. Our wars may not have been as long as theirs, but...'

Kyra smiled. 'You have had a lot of ships and people killed in the past during several different conflicts, and each time you rebuilt your fleet. But you only rebuilt what you needed, and didn't build larger and stronger fleets to prevent yourselves from being stretched too thin the next time that you were attacked. Even though the Federation was constantly exploring and expanding.'

'We aren't warlike, and we're trying to use peaceful expansion. Make contact with new civilizations and trade peacefully with them, offering what we have that they need or could use, while still allowing them to grow on their own until they are ready to take their place beside us as full members of the Federation.'

Max shook his head. 'From what I've heard, you've had enough conflict during your first contacts or other expansion that you should already have figured out that it's a dangerous way to proceed. And your fleet hasn't kept pace with your civilization. You don't build new ships fast enough to replace older ships and still provide the same level of coverage to the systems that you are claiming and protecting. Which is why you have to draw forces from all over the quadrant whenever you have a problem at any location.'

'And what would you suggest that we do instead? Build larger warfleets so that everyone we meet has reason to fear us?'

Max chuckled and shook his head. 'No. You don't utilize your resources well enough to do something like that. But you could arm your planets better, and start building some small forces to protect each system. It only takes a few thousand people to properly crew some of the the small ships that you use, and there are plenty of resources available for you to build many more ships than you currently do.'

Hargrave smiled. 'Yes, I suppose that there would be plenty of energy and resources available once we do have ships that are hyper capable. But I still don't understand what is so important. Why you all insist upon us doing what we can to increase the size of our fleets exponentially as soon as possible.'

Max smiled. 'I'm sure that once my little sister finishes her demonstration and explanation, all of you will have a pretty good idea of exactly what concerns her. She's a much better strategist than most of the people in our Clan already, though she really doesn't have all that great a grasp of tactics at times. Once she learns to get her emotions under more control, she won't be as squeamish about some things and she'll become a great leader.'

'I thought that the Clans didn't have female leaders. That your Kohl-kahhn was always male.'

Fleur smiled. 'Kohl-garh doesn't need his wives to do his strategy for him. Nor does he need them to lead his troops into combat for him. He is a unique individual who excels at strategy, tactics, and all of the other aspects of both warfare and leadership.' She laughed lightly. 'With the possible exception of dealing with politicians and diplomats and establishing peaceful relations. His wives handle that particular area for him and his Clan. But in most other Clans, the wives of the Kohl-kahhn take over at least part of the normal duties that Kohl-garh does for his own Clan. Kahmmhi could run either the offensive or defensive fleet for any Clan and do a very good job of serving her husband and her Clan. She just doesn't like going into ground combat herself. Which really isn't a problem, since EVERY Kohl-kahhn is quite capable in that particular aspect of warfare himself. Though in Clans where the Kohl-kahhn isn't an Alpha, they send in senior officers or family members to lead the troops when the Kohl-kahhn ages too much to remain in combat personally, but is still capable of running the Clan.'

'I thought that Alphas didn't age.'

'Not all Clans are Alphas. Not yet. And there may be a few Clans where the majority of the Clan will never be capable of becoming Alphas. Their members all age and die eventually. Generally after several millennia. They typically only have to deal with a few decades to, at most, a century or so of being too weak to go into combat before they age and die, so they have some warning and some time to consider a successor before replacing them is actually necessary.'

Hargrave nodded, realizing that there were some things that were almost normal for at least some of the Clans, though the time scale was definitely more protracted than for any culture in the Federation or the Alliance. Most of the longest lived species in the Federation only survived a few centuries under normal conditions.

'So, how do you know each of the others here?'

'We had to work with Chief O'Brien, Jadzia, and some of the others when we helped armor DS9 and improve their defenses, and when we helped them go over how to repair the captured ships and upgrade their weapons, shields, and armor. We worked extensively with Kyra during the construction of the detention facilities on Bajor for holding all of the captured Dominion personnel and their allies.'

'And the others?'

'We saw Paris a lot during his time training with the pilots aboard our ships so that he knew how to handle the modified shuttles as well as possible, and could help train others to pilot them properly. Their new systems were kind of different from anything that your people were used to dealing with. B'elana was heavily involved in all of the modifications that were made to Voyager, including the new engines and the weapons and armor upgrades. And B'elana was involved with all of the modifications to her newly developed cloaking system to convert it over to stealth. Seven was consulted heavily during alterations to their shuttles and their ship, since she was their resident expert on hyperspace and gravitic engines. We saw a lot of the different personnel from Voyager during the long trek back to this system. Though the longest and dullest part was the last leg, since there was no hyper point between the last system in the Delta quadrant and the wormhole that connects to this system.'

Paris nodded. 'That was boring as hell, but exciting as well.'

Hargrave looked confused. 'How could something be very boring, yet very exciting at the same time?'

'Well, we didn't have warp engines because the Clan had to take them out to make room for all of the gravitic engines and power sources that we were going to be installing in the ship, and we didn't have enough structural integrity to make doing long microjumps worth the risk. So it took us several months to cross from the nearest system to the wormhole. Boring, because it wasn't that great a distance, and we could have traveled it much more quickly if we had still been capable of using warp. Exciting because we were traveling using our gravitics with some microjumps that were safer. They had to be carefully calculated and executed, but the real reason for the excitement was that we were so close to getting back to the Alpha quadrant, and some of us had thought that we'd be very old or even have died of old age before that was possible.'

'Yes. I heard that they saved you decades of travel time, and kept you from having to deal with a lot of cultures. Though I'm not certain why that would be so important. I thought that StarFleet's mission was to seek out and contact new cultures.'

'The cultures in the Delta quadrant are, by and large, very aggressive and warlike. They like trying to take any tech that they don't have from other cultures that they meet. Usually by force if you're not willing to give them what they want. We had a lot of conflicts during our time in the Delta quadrant.'

B'elana looked over at Tom and nodded, agreeing with him. 'There were several times when we were facing the Borg while the Clan was there that we thought that we'd never get back to the Alpha quadrant. Some of the Borg fleets that the Clan defeated were much larger and more powerful than anything that we'd ever seen before. Until Kahmmhi dropped stealth on all of her ships when they faced the last fleet, and even the Borg were surprised to discover what they were facing.'

'Wasn't doing something like that dangerous?'

Seven shook her head. 'Not really. The Clan's ships, weapons, and technology are so superior to those of the Borg that the Borg couldn't possibly have assimilated them and taken the technology that they wanted from them. As the Borg quickly found out.'

Hargrave nodded. 'They'd already heard what had happened to the Borg forces that had faced the Clan, and as difficult as she found it to believe, they'd seen sensor logs of the encounters, and had to admit that the very presence of both Voyager and Kahmmhi's ships proved that the records hadn't been altered, and that they'd clearly survived the encounter.

Hargrave thanked them, then gathered her cameraman and left, allowing them to have some privacy and some time to themselves. She had a lot of video to go over, and she still needed determine which parts of it she wanted to keep as the most important and which parts weren't worth trying to send back for broadcast once they returned to the Bajoran system.

When they finally arrived in the next system, all of the Alliance visitors were anxious, clearly wondering where the hyper stream led. There was a lot of nervous tension among them as they waited anxiously for the ship to enter the system.

Kahmmhi smiled as she watched them. 'This isn't the stream that leads there, but one of the hyper streams that connects to DS9 can get a ship to Vulcan in four weeks.'

The Alliance members were impressed, since it would take longer than that to get to Vulcan, even at high warp speeds that were no longer used except in extreme emergencies. The danger to damaging the fabric of the subspace barrier were too great to allow high speed warp travel any more, and now that they were aware of it, the Federation and others were worried about the potential consequences. The fact that hyperspace travel could get them there faster, and do it without risking any potential problems, just made the idea of using hyper travel even more appealing to them.

They came out into the system, and everyone gasped. The system was definitely unique, but it was also clearly uninhabited as far as they could tell. It was a binary system, with two blue white stars in it and a number of planets that were orbiting the pair.

'I've never seen a system like this before. Two blue giants as a double star. I thought that you said that this system is inhabited.'

'It is. On the sixth planet orbiting the binary, there are some life forms. The most developed life form is sentient, but it is far from being capable of going into space at this time.'

'Amazing. Where are we?'

Virginia displayed the star maps for them, allowing them to see where they were compared to where their own systems were, including Bajor.

'But, that's impossible. We're thousands of light years from Bajor.'

'Probably. Some of the hyper streams in this region of space really get tangled up compared to some areas that we've been in before. The next stop on this stream is much closer to your space, the third is somewhere in the Gamma quadrant, and the fourth actually enters the edge of one of the more powerful, larger, and most militant empires in the Gamma quadrant. The Vrreen Empire. They have been aggressively expanding their borders for several millennia now. Their neighbors have been slowing them down considerably, and some of them have even been forming alliances of their own against the common threat. While the Vrreen are the largest group in their area, some of the smaller groups are using either slightly better tech or better tactics, so they are holding their own at the present time.'

McNamara beat even the reporters to the punch. 'How do you know all of this?'

'Our scouts gather intel as they go. We weren't simply mapping out hyper routes during their scouting mission. We always gather as much intel as we can so that we know what we're getting into before we make any contact with any other species. Humans or humanoids are the trickiest for us to contact, since they could either decide to remain neutral, no matter what we tell them, become an ally, or even join the enemy in working against us. Most of the other races that we run into are more predictable with very little observation. At least, that's what we've found so far where we come from. Everyone there has heard of the Consortium, so they all know exactly how the Consortium acts and what their options are once the Consortium reaches their space.'

Buckingham smiled. 'So, what can you tell us about the Vrreen Empire?'

Virginia handed Kahmmhi a comp. She looked at it briefly, then nodded. 'Their empire is larger than the entire Alliance in both volume and the number of planets that are inhabited, and their population is probably much greater as well, since they tend to breed a lot of warriors. They are currently warring on at least three fronts with smaller neighboring groups. There is currently a truce between them and two other nearby groups that have kept them from expanding in their own directions in the past few centuries, but both groups are showing signs of gearing back up for open confrontation with the Vrreen.'

'What about their fleets, their technology, and things like that?'

Kahmmhi smiled at Thompson. 'Their tech is comparable to what you had before we arrived. Almost equivalent to what you had when we left DS9 in many respects, but not all. The armor that we gave you was better than anything that they have the capability of producing in quantity. Their ships are about the size of the ones that you recently captured from the Dominion. They maintain about two dozen war fleets, with several dozen smaller fleets providing internal security among the systems that they maintain slave planets inside. They enslave other races and force them to become workers, and their production capability is much greater than that of the entire Alliance.'

She paused, then looked at the comp again. 'We don't have complete records, since we weren't here very long and we didn't really break in and physically hack their computer systems, but from what our scouts were able to discern, a typical security fleet has about ten battleships, fifty battlecruisers, and a hundred heavy cruisers. Those are our designations for their types of ships. A battleship is roughly equivalent to the battleships that you now have, a battlecruiser is roughly equivalent to your current battle frigates, and a heavy cruiser is roughly equivalent to your new warships.'

Krang looked very worried as soon as he heard this information. 'They could assemble a fleet of thousands of ships. Possibly larger than the huge, powerful fleet that we faced at DS9 during the Dominion war. And each ship would be equivalent to the best, largest, and most powerful ships that we currently have. And our ships, even counting all of the warships, only number in the hundreds for the entire Alliance.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Yes. That is why we were worried for your safety. If they discover hyperspace and hyper travel, they could send a fleet that would come out inside your systems within just a few months. And since you have no way of monitoring hyperspace travel and no way to scan for approaching ships before they reach your systems, they could pop out of hyperspace inside one of your systems without any warning at all.'

'You said that they have some truces in place with some of their former enemies, so they are amenable to negotiation.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'They were fighting their enemies for several hundred years before negotiations for a truce even began. Both sides were starting to show signs of the strain of continued warfare, and they needed time to rebuild their forces, so they agreed to a cease fire. Both sides knew that it was a temporary measure, but they wanted the time to try to improve their respective positions relative to each other, hoping to gain an advantage over their enemy before hostilities resumed. And they were not only fighting against each other at the time, so they had other enemies to deal with as well.'

'And how has that worked out?'

'On one front, both sides simply began doing what they could to rebuild their forces and breed up more warriors. With their larger population and industrial base, the Vrreen have the advantage, and will eventually win if their enemy doesn't figure out a way to make them stop. On the other front, their enemy concentrated on making as much scientific progress as they could, and the Vrreen are in for some very nasty surprises when they eventually break their truce. Records that we have of the past history of the Vrreen Empire indicate that if their enemy can hold out for a few more decades of protracted warfare against them, the Vrreen will probably make peace with them and attempt to either coexist peacefully or add them to the empire as a partner.'

'What about if they are contacted peacefully by someone that they've never met before?'

'They are territorial and aggressive. If you sent anyone to contact them, especially by hyperspace, they would almost certainly be taken captive and their technology would be studied in an attempt to allow the Vrreen to bypass the limitations around their current position. They are paranoid about their security, and anyone who has technology that surpasses their own makes them feel very vulnerable to attack. With the ability to travel through hyper and come out somewhere that is completely isolated from their current empire, they would have gained a significant advantage over their enemies, and they would probably begin another phase of rapid expansion.'

The Alliance members looked at each other, realizing what that would mean for the other civilizations around them. With even a slight superiority in tech, their larger population and greater resources would allow the Vrreen to continue to grow and expand, with each new acquisition adding to their momentum and their resources. They would become unstoppable, since nobody in this galaxy knew how to wage a war of that nature effectively. And eventually, they would find their way to the systems that had the tech that they had stolen so that they could eliminate them as a potential threat.

'They could overwhelm even larger empires and add them to their own. As their resources and power grew, they would become capable of even more.'

Everyone looked at Mek'Vihm, then nodded. There was no use deluding themselves or trying to deny the facts. This was a serious potential threat to the entire Alliance.

'So, what are you suggesting that we do about this threat?'

Kahmmhi looked at Sanchez and smiled. 'Prepare for the inevitable. If the Vrreen are conquered or destroyed, whoever did it poses just as much of a potential threat to your civilizations as the Vrreen currently do. You need to build up your own defenses, develop your own technology as much as possible, and prepare for the possibility that you might actually have to fight a real war against an enemy who isn't going to just stop and talk if you destroy a few ships or fleets. They are used to taking losses in combat, and they consider combat to be a very necessary part of the expansion and growth of their empire.'

Everyone nodded, realizing that there wasn't a whole lot that they could do to change an enemy that they had never even met yet. But knowing about them, and having time to prepare, could allow them to determine what other options that they might have that the Clan wouldn't really consider or accept. After all, they had much more experience with diplomacy and negotiations with alien cultures than the Clan had.

Kahmmhi saw their expressions and their mood, and realized exactly what her guests were thinking. She wasn't all that concerned, since politicians always acted like that. What they didn't even know or begin to realize was that their own military was gaining influence and power as their cultures tried to amalgamate into something cohesive enough to allow them to survive as a group against the very real outside forces that would threaten to destroy all of them. The military had a totally different mindset and approach to warfare now that the Clan had shown them how to really fight a war, as well as what was sometimes required if you wished to survive in real combat. If their politicians made mistakes, the survivors would trust the military much more than they would trust those who had blindly ignored the warnings and led them to ruin and death. She had confidence that, even in the very worst case, there would be at least some who would survive. Now that they knew that it was possible to survive in space without ever claiming a system or staying in one place, there were options available for those who had the foresight to prepare for them. Or who were desperate enough to accept that they didn't have any other choices that guaranteed their survival.

'How many hyper points connect to this system? And are any of the planets here habitable?'

'A couple of the planets are habitable, but their ecosystems are somewhat limited because of their eccentric orbits and the influences of two hot stars on their organisms. Lots of radiation, lots of heat, four summers a year, and two very extreme winters. But they are habitable, and capable of sustaining humanoid life.'

'And the hyper points?'

'This system has six hyper points that connect to it. That is a lot for a single system to have, but there are two blue-white giants present to provide some severe gravitational anomalies, which is what helps to form stable hyper points inside a system. We're not sure where all of the hyper streams lead, since we had limited time to scout and limited resources available to scout with.'

Kahmmhi didn't bother telling them that if the Clan hadn't already been so busy doing other things for the Alliance, Virginia probably would have launched at least twenty talons of recon ships while they were in this system and had them explore all of the previously unexplored hyper streams to the extent that they could before they had to return to the Bajoran system. If they didn't know, they wouldn't be disappointed.

None of the representatives said anything in response to that. While they might be a huge force by any standard that the Alliance had, Kahmmhi's entire fleet was simply a scout claw by Clan standards. Which made them a small, lightly armed scouting force. Only the fact that they had the PUFF along made their fleet much more powerful than it otherwise would be. Of course, their fleet could have probably turned the tide of the battle in the Bajoran system even without the PUFF. Their ships were that powerful, and their tech was that much better than that of the Federation and their new allies, not to mention the Dominion forces that they had defeated.

'We are going to be developing hyper capabilities of our own with your help. Does that mean that you will provide us with hyper maps of the regions that you have explored?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Um, yes and no. We will give you maps of the areas that we explored within the Alpha quadrant, and some of the stuff from the Gamma quadrant that is relevant to your security or your ability to travel to other systems that are inside your current sphere of influence. As far as what we explored of the Delta quadrant, we will probably provide you with most of that material as well. What we won't do is give you all of the data that we have on the Gamma quadrant.'

McNamara nodded. 'Can you please tell us why you're limiting our knowledge of the Gamma quadrant?'

'Voyager explored a lot of territory in the Delta quadrant, and you could use their records to learn much about that region of your galaxy without even relying on our records. But the Gamma quadrant remains unknown to you simply because you're not ready to explore it. While you have a lot of information about various groups and civilizations in the Delta quadrant, the most violent among them have obviously inferior technology compared to what Voyager had when they were taken to the Delta quadrant. That means that most of them currently pose no real threat to the Federation or anyone else in the Alpha quadrant, since they lack both the numbers and the technology to defeat you militarily, and since they don't have any way to get to this region of space within decades at the very least, and probably more like at least a century or more for most of those civilizations that Voyager encountered there.' She smiled. 'With the Borg being the obvious exception, of course.'

Williams looked around at the nervous laughter from the other representatives. None of them thought that the Borg would actually come to the Alpha quadrant after their last encounter with Voyager. And if they did, nobody thought that it would take much to convince the Borg that coming to the Alpha quadrant was a very bad idea. That would, of course, depend on whether or not there were any Borg survivors capable of carrying the message back to the rest of the Borg collective.

'OK. We should be relatively safe from any known threats in the Delta quadrant, but we're really going to have to gear up and build up our military forces in order to deal with any of the threats that currently exist in the Gamma quadrant.' He laughed at some of the expressions on the faces of his colleagues from the Federation. 'We aren't actually going to go on the offensive or attack anyone for no reason, but our alliance with the Romulans and the Klingons does require us to take certain measures to insure our own security and to provide for our common defense against any external threats. This definitely constitutes a potential threat according to the terms of the treaty that formed the Alliance. So we will have to build up our own fleet as well, simply for self defense purposes, should that become necessary.'

McNamara nodded. 'That is true. There are such provisions incorporated into the formal alliance agreements, and the Council has every intention of honoring those commitments to both our allies and the people of the Federation who we are responsible for protecting.'

Sanchez looked over at Kahmmhi querulously. 'It took us four days to get here by hyper, and we've covered thousands of light years. That is impressive. But how well does hyper work in general?'

'That depends on the hyper streams. They vary in speed, size, and how they are interconnected. There are probably some systems that would be closer to others in terms of travel time by using warp or other travel methods, and there are lots of systems that don't have any hyper points inside them. So you will require some method of travel that isn't based on hyper, and for many cases, that means that our own gravitic drives won't be of much use to your people, either. It would simply take too long for you to travel outside of hyper when you have to cover longer distances because your construction and inertial compensators aren't good enough to allow you to really use microjumping through hyper to its full potential. And there are still going to be lots of systems that you could reach by warp much more quickly than we could by microjumping simply because of the distances that are involved.'

Virginia smiled. 'Your lives are much shorter than ours are, so spending five years traveling from one system to another would be something that you definitely wouldn't want to consider.'

'You actually do that?' Marlena Hargrave sounded astonished.

'Not very often, but it does happen. There are times when we want or need to get to a particular system that's near a system that we're in right then, and it would either take too long to find a way there through hyper or we don't know that the system has a hyper stream of its own. For us, skipping across space by doing microjumps through hyper is an option, but your ships simply won't withstand that kind of sustained, repeated stress, so you can't afford to try to do that.'

Andersson nodded. 'I'm sure that our scientific experts will be able to explain the limitations that we will have to work with to all of us after they've had a chance to go over everything with your experts.'

Virginia smiled and nodded. 'That would probably help avoid unnecessary confusion. I'm sure that those of you who don't really understand the details of the science involved will appreciate not having to try to keep all of the details of our capabilities straight, since they differ considerably from what you will be capable of on your own until you've had a chance to improve your own technology.'

Several of the diplomats looked irritated by her comment, but none of them said anything. Fitzsimmons began to turn red. 'I don't think that you need to be quite so condescending or disrespectful of our own scientific and technological accomplishments and capabilities. We DID discover hyperspace and develop gravitic engines on our own, you know.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Actually, Mr. Fitzsimmons, with all of your scientific accomplishments and capabilities, and all of the resources of your respective cultures, nobody in your Alliance DID discover either hyperspace or gravitics, even though you already knew that we used both of them regularly and your scientific experts had talked with our people to go over some of the basic theories that were involved. The small group of people who actually DID discover those things were working on their own, totally cut off from your groups, and THEY brought this new technology back to the Alpha quadrant.'

B'elana stood and addressed the reporter and the rest of the group. 'Without the assistance of the Clan, we probably wouldn't have survived long enough to bring that technology and science back to the Alpha quadrant. And even if we had, it could have taken another fifty or sixty years for us to get here. We have no idea what could have happened during that time period. Either to us or to you.'

Richards came over to Fitzsimmons and talked to him quietly for a moment, and he nodded and sat down.

Kahmmhi looked directly at Fitzsimmons. 'You really don't have the scientific understanding, the technology, or the logistical support to try to use our technology safely and effectively. And trying to explain everything about our technology could not only be dangerous, but also very confusing to those who aren't used to dealing with it.'

Tahl'mahn nodded. 'We have already found ourselves having to become very specific with the experts who are teaching us about the basics concerning gravitics, hyperspace, and stealth. Even the stealth that they're giving to us is vastly different from the hybrid cloaking technology that we developed at the end of the Dominion war. It can be very confusing, even for those of us who are scientific experts, when we are talking about the differences between what we should be able to do with our technology and what the Clan can do with their technology. I do not look forward to the detailed scientific briefings that will be required when we bring the results of this mission back to Romulus and present it to the Senate.'

Mek'Vihm smiled at her. 'I'm sure that you will manage to carry out your mission properly. The Empire has great confidence in your skills.'

Krang scowled. 'We should stick to the topic at hand.'

McNamara smiled. 'Um, what was the topic again?'

'Preparations for the future, and their necessity, appeared to be the message that we were to get out of this trip.'

McNamara looked at Krang very studiously. 'OK. If I didn't know the Klingons better, I'd swear that you had just attempted to make a joke, Krang.'

Krang smiled broadly. 'Of course not. I never joke about preparations for war.'

Andersson shook his head. 'We're not discussing preparations for war. At least, not yet. But I will agree that we do need to make at least some preparations to defend ourselves BEFORE it becomes necessary to actually do that. Preparations that have been made in advance would definitely increase our ability to respond to whatever threat we encounter in a much more effective way.'

Krang nodded. Mek'Vihm nodded and added, 'As would gathering intelligence to know what threats we might expect to have to deal with BEFORE they are an immediate threat to our very survival.'

'Yes. Intelligence regarding specific threats would allow us to develop specific plans and strategies for dealing with any foreseeable contingencies that might result.' Krang chuckled. 'And I must agree that it would be nice to be able to send reinforcements to the area, if that was necessary, before their presence became critical for either our victory or our very survival. Surprise attacks and ambushes are almost always much more effective tactics for warfare, regardless of who is taking the offensive.'

Nobody wanted to add anything to that statement, so the meeting ended with Williams informing them of the scheduled meetings to go over various topics with their own experts during the next few days so that they would be up to speed and able to begin meetings with everyone present once they returned to the Bajoran system.

Mara looked at James and Julie, not even attempting to hide her dismay. 'What do you mean we're going to be way behind schedule at this rate? Our building schedule was designed to be fairly lenient and give us plenty of time to do all of the work. What's the problem?'

'The Bajoran leaders don't seem to be communicating effectively with the Bajoran people. They make decisions regarding some of the sites that we're supposed to demolish and replace, but the people don't agree with their decision. And it's not just at some of their temples, either. That would make at least some sense.'

'Can you give me specifics?'

'Some of the people say that their homes are historical buildings, and that they've lived in them for generations. If it survived the Cardassians and their occupation, then it should be good enough to survive for as long as they and their descendants require the building if they maintain it properly.'

Mara shrugged. 'Then get them to sign off, tell them that their buildings won't be upgraded unless they put the upgrades in themselves, and work around them.'

James nodded. 'Not a problem. What about the designated sites? Have we worked out a way to safely take down everything around them without damaging them?'

Mara smiled. 'Actually, we have. One of the Raiders suggested a solution, and the techs worked out the math and determined that it will work safely enough.'

'So, what's the solution?'

'Park a freaking shuttle on the building and slowly drop the gravitics so that the weight settles on the building. It should break into rubble, and then we can just haul off the rocks and run them through the recyclers. We can even use them as raw materials for the new buildings, so it's not like we really have to haul them all off and dump them somewhere until we're ready to use them.'

Julie nodded. 'Works for us. What about the buildings that are too closely packed together to get something as large as a shuttle in there?'

'Tell the guys to work out their frustrations while they're in armor. It might take a bit longer, but it won't even risk damaging the nearby buildings.'

The others nodded, and went back to work. There was a lot of work to do, and a lot of houses to build before the Clan could leave the system to check out the hyper point in the Delta quadrant that might let them find a way back to the rest of their Clan. Mara shook her head in disbelief. She had no clue how anyone could want to live under the conditions that currently prevailed on most of Bajor, especially when they were being given the option of living in housing that the Clan built that was much better, safer, and more efficient. It wasn't as if they didn't know how the housing worked, since they'd already had a decade to accumulate information on how that type of housing worked in the harshest, most extreme environments on Bajor. If they didn't want to live in better, sturdier, more modern buildings, that just meant less work for her and the rest of the construction battalions. It just confirmed her suspicions that there was something wrong with those who actually WANTED to live on a freaking rock.

Mara contacted Margaret and told her what had just happened, and made sure that she would be checking with Kahmmhi, Virginia, and the official representatives of the Bajoran government upon their return to this system so that they made sure that this wasn't just some type of miscommunication. In the meantime, she began setting up the plans for the demolition and reconstruction of the first area of the first city that she had been assigned. She hoped that the Bajorans liked green, because it looked like they were going to be using a lot of solar panels in their cities, and the mihlkyrrhnhm would make the entire planet look a lot greener around their cities than it currently did. Of course, many of the cities would have more than enough energy simply from their windmills and solar panels, since there was a lot of coastal breeze near the oceans and a lot of desert wind due to the thermals in the desert regions. And there was a lot of sun on the planet as well. Even if they didn't harvest a lot of antimatter, they should have a very good standard of living.

Mara had to keep reminding herself that they didn't necessarily live on rocks by choice, but the people here simply lacked sufficient technology to allow all of their population to live in space full time. And that they didn't have any enemies, such as the Consortium, who could destroy entire solar systems when they found them. That was enough to keep her from thinking that the people around here were crazy. And it helped her deal with them when they came up with crazy ideas such as the one that had made her recent meeting with the other construction battalion commanders necessary in the first place. It was just such a foreign concept to the very way of life that the Clan had for anyone to cling to something that was old and relatively useless when they had the resources to replace it with something that was better, safer, and more efficient. Especially when their entire civilization was strapped for resources in the first place. Mara shrugged, deciding that she would never really understand how those who lived on rocks lived. Their entire mindset was alien to everything that she knew.

The meetings in hyperspace had gone relatively well, and all of the representatives were convinced that they at least had a good grasp of the basics for each of the topics that they needed to cover with the experts from both the Clan and Voyager. There had been a few times when one or more of the experts who were explaining things to them had almost lost it, but everyone had managed to muddle through well enough to let them do the job that they had been sent here to do. The Alliance really needed this technology. The Federation had sent their delegates here because they had wanted the technology, but now they knew that it was critical for them to have it in order to guarantee their safety in the future. There were just too many variables to rely upon chance and blind luck to protect them from the constant expansion of some of the star empires in the Gamma quadrant.

Virginia watched the delegates as they viewed the entry into the Bajoran system, though she was paying more attention to their scientists and their attempts to collect all of the data that they could about the phenomenon of reentry into the system from hyperspace.

'You'll find that Voyager can't quite come out of hyper the same way that we do, so the readings that you're going to get are different than those that you got from our ship. They have stealth, but there is still some detectable splash when they enter or leave hyper if you know what to scan for. Once they're in normal space, none of your current tech can detect them, though.'

K'ehlynn nodded. 'While they won't be detectable by any of our instruments, they are still detectable when they fire their weapons.'

Nakamura looked at her, seeming puzzled. 'But the Klingons and the Romulans both managed to work out ways to keep their cloaking from dropping when they fired their weapons. It was a matter of the amount of energy that the cloaking systems required, and when they had enough energy, the ship remained undetectable even when it was firing its weapons. Why couldn't the Clan help them do something like that? Their tech is so much better, and with their ability to generate and conserve energy, they must have more than enough energy to handle that problem.'

'The ship doesn't become visible. However, if they fire a railgun, you can detect the gravitic pulse and know that something is coming from that general area, but not exactly what, exactly where, or exactly when. Their lasers, on the other hand, are visible to our instruments, even when they're not visible to the naked eye, so we can detect the point of origin of the lasers and fire on that point. Just as their enemies do. That is why they use the tactic that they call "shoot and scoot". As soon as they fire, they change the position of their ship in a random pattern, keeping it within the distance that their weapons are still capable of damaging the enemy.'

'Ah, right. Return fire isn't as effective as it should be if they don't maintain their position long enough for you to hit them, but it's better than doing nothing.'

Tahl'mahn looked thoughtful. 'We still can't really do anything like they do, since our ships won't really be capable of handling that tactic because of the stresses that it would cause to the ship. Inertial dampeners and structural integrity fields can only make up a fraction of the difference between our materials and theirs, and our ability to limit the inertial damage compared to what they can do with their inertial compensators. Has anyone come up with a strategy or tactic to handle that deficit?'

Krang nodded. 'I've been discussing it with some of the others. We think that we can do limited hyper jumps across relatively short distances without damaging our ships. Of course, that's assuming that we use newer ships that are built to the best of our capabilities, regardless of the cost in money, time, and resources. We will need to put in additional power generators, additional inertial compensators, and use the best, heaviest armor and construction materials that we can for maximum structural integrity.'

Admiral Thompson nodded thoughtfully, considering the suggestion. 'If we can't do that, what is the best that we know that we CAN do with the tech and our current capabilities?'

'According to the data that we got from the Clan and Voyager, if we use the larger, stronger, better armored ships and build in the necessary back-ups, we can still make course changes that are currently impossible without exposing either the ship or the crew to unacceptable stresses. Without any hyper microjumps, the gravitics would allow us to move at about four or five light seconds per hour. By making drastic and unpredictable course changes at our best speed, that should make it harder to even hit our ships. Depending on the response time and the vector, we should be far enough away from the targeted area to avoid any return fire that the enemy can launch at the detected source of our fire.'

Marlena Hargrave shook her head. 'What does that mean in terms of how far you could get from the point where you initiated your attack before effective return fire could hit you?'

'Our lasers should have a range of about four million kilometers on the larger ships, and half that for the smaller ships such as the battle frigates. One light second is three hundred thousand kilometers, so that means that it would take a laser or any weapon that traveled at light speed somewhere between just over six and a half and just over thirteen seconds to travel from the ship that was firing at us to our position when they started firing.'

'OK. So how far could your ships get from where they were aiming in that time?'

'Given reaction times, and the fact that they can't see the laser beam until it hits them, we have at least the time that it would take the beam to travel back that distance. Our ships can travel at roughly eighty three kilometers per second without stressing the engines or the structural integrity of the ship. So we should be able to move roughly five hundred kilometers from the point of our attack for the smaller ships, and roughly twice that, or about a thousand kilometers, for the larger ships. That is in any direction.'

'A large, powerful weapon could still damage the ship, couldn't it?'

'If the explosion was large enough and powerful enough, it could hit the ship's shields. But our shields are much stronger than any shields that we've ever had before, and the armor on the ships is thicker and more protective than anything that we've ever encountered prior to meeting the Clan. So it is possible that we could get far enough away that even a very large, extremely powerful explosion wouldn't cause severe damage to either the ship or the shields.'

'And what happens if that isn't enough? What if they have weapons that could damage our ships at that distance?'

Krang smiled coldly at Fitzsimmons. 'That is why we intend to use the idea of turning all of our larger ships into carriers that carry a large number of small fighters. Shuttlecraft that are armed and armored can travel about as fast as the ship can, and they can use their own lasers and other weapons. We can even make some type of delivery system that would allow us to launch antimatter mines similar to those that the Clan uses.'

'Small craft against something the size of a battleship? Our losses would be astronomical.'

Virginia laughed, cutting off Krang's reply before he could get irritated enough to strangle the reporter. 'A single antimatter mine can cause a blast as powerful as one of your warp cores detonating. A small shuttle can carry a number of those mines, and they can be made so that they are almost undetectable. It takes a bit longer than just firing a laser, but if the enemy doesn't know that the mine is coming, and doesn't take evasive action to avoid being hit, it will cause damage to their ship and their shields, no matter how powerful they are. And they won't even be able to determine where the attack came from if your mines are undetectable by their sensors. As for your losses in combat, we use similar tactics to take out battleships that are much larger, much more powerful, and much more heavily armed and armored than any ship that you should ever face. Even projections for future development of ships and weapons show that it should take millennia for anyone in this galaxy to be capable of making ships and weapons like our own weapons currently are. And if several hundred of those mines detonate in a relatively small volume of space...' Virginia smiled. 'I'm sure that you've seen some of the video of the battle that occurred in this system during our previous visit. Lots of bright, pretty flashes, quickly followed by lots of disabled, damaged, or destroyed starships.'

'Yes, but you also had other weapons that won't be available to us.'

Virginia shrugged. 'Your own ships fought against a larger force that had ships that were larger, more powerful, and had better cloaking than your own ships did, but they still held their own against the ships that they fought. You lost a few ships and a few thousand people. You saved your entire civilization and your entire quadrant from invasion. People die in a war. Even in the Clan.'

Nobody wanted to comment in response to that statement, especially not with all of the reporters present and recording everything for posterity. The delegates decided to return to their quarters and rest, resuming their meetings the next day after everyone was present on board the Rolling Thunder.

After they left, Virginia gave Kahmmhi a small list of messages that had been waiting for their return. Kahmmhi went over them quickly, smiling as she saw the one from Mara and realized how they were intending to expedite their demolitions.

'Very good idea. I'll contact the Bajorans once we're back near the planet and talk to them about the questions that she had. If they're going to force civilians to allow their houses to be torn down and rebuilt with better, more modern materials, they'll have to enforce their own laws. We're not evicting anyone, and we're certainly not dropping their old homes down around their ears while they're still living inside them with all of their belongings.'

'What about those who are just trying to see if they can get more compensation?'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'We have a schedule. Their government came up with the plan on how and when the construction was to be done. If they're still there and they don't pack and move within a reasonable time period, we'll simply skip their house, leave it as it is, and continue building around them. If they don't like it, they or their government can do the construction themselves after we leave. They've got the resources and materials to do it on their own. It will just take them a much longer time to do a project of that magnitude.'

Virginia smiled and nodded. They both knew that the Bajorans wouldn't put the time and effort into the project to even try to duplicate the Clan's construction methods as fully as they could. It would just be too intensive an effort, and would take too much time and resources to justify. It would be much better than anything currently on Bajor that hadn't been built by the Clan, but compared to the structures that had been built by the Clan, they would still have second class habitations. And everyone around them would know it for generations to come.

'I'll have Laura pass on your instructions to the battalion commanders. After you talk to the Bajorans and finalize things, of course.'

Kahmmhi nodded and left to get something to eat and try to get in a quick workout. The stress of dealing with politicians always made her want to kill something, and she was beginning to understand why her grandfather disliked them so much and made his wives deal with them most of the time. She had a few hours before they would be back in orbit around Bajor. There wasn't any hurry to get across the system, so Virginia was taking her time and giving Kahmmhi a chance to catch her breath.

Remal Sintar looked at the split screen, listening as Kahmmhi explained the situation to him and Colonel Nerys.

'Ah, I see. Yes, we will take measures to make sure that everyone understands your position. I believe that the solution that you have outlined would work very well, and will make things much easier for everyone concerned. If they simply do not wish to have a more modern, updated dwelling, we aren't going to force our people to leave their old home and move back into a different one.'

Kyra chuckled. 'You actually intend to park a shuttle on buildings to destroy them?'

'It works. It's quick, easy, and extremely efficient. The rubble will be run through the synthesizers to make the materials for the new buildings, so we don't really have to even haul it off of the site. Just clean up and make the new buildings.' Kahmmhi laughed. 'It's certainly not going to damage a strike assault shuttle to do that. We've had them hit kind the ground of hard during quick landings where the pilots misjudged the distance and they left an impression where they hit. Sometimes even in buildings or rock.'

'And that didn't cause injuries to the crew or personnel on board?'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'They generally don't exceed a speed that the compensators can handle, since that is what they're designed to do. The impact is softer because no matter what they hit, it's less dense than the armor on the shuttle, so whatever they hit has some give in it, and that offsets it being a much more abrupt stop.' She chuckled. 'The ground on a planet IS softer and less dense than the armor on a Grak battleship, and we generally have to go through one hundred meters of armor to even get through the hull and board the ship.'

Remal nodded, looking a bit concerned at the thought of being reminded exactly how sudden, violent, and totally unexpected the typical Clan attack was. Their enemies definitely had a problem.

Kyra looked at Remal. 'Sintar, is this going to cause any problems as far as the discrepancies on the maps that they were given?'

'It shouldn't. They are being very meticulous, and respecting whatever the locals tell them regarding the local buildings. I'm sure that we didn't include some old buildings that have some historic or sentimental value on the maps, but we were working quickly and were only concerned with making sure that the most important and most historically significant buildings were listed. They check everything with us, and if there is a conflict, they simply leave the building alone until they find out exactly what is going on. They have a lot of work to do, and if they miss something, we will either live with it or do the work ourselves, as best we can. We currently have sufficient technology and resources to do much of the work on our own. There are only a few things that they are building that are just too costly in terms of energy, time, and resources for us to do on our own.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Technically, you could do all of the work yourselves. It would simply take you longer to finish the project because you don't have the personnel and training that we do. Yes, some of the materials are going to be difficult or impossible for you to make on your own, but there are adequate replacements that could make your cities work almost as well as the ones that we constructed previously.'

'Is there any way to do anything to protect the buildings that you don't replace?'

'If all that you're worried about is the aesthetics and preserving the building so that it isn't damaged otherwise, there are some substances that can be put onto them as a protective layer that would protect them and still not change their appearance. We could put up some reinforced walls around the property if you're simply worried about severe storms or things like that, but it could affect the aesthetics, as well as visibility inside the structure. Though if we put solar panels on the walls and windmills just inside them, that would allow the temples or other buildings that we did that for to still be able to generate much of their own power as well.'

'Thank you for the suggestion. I will discuss it with Lyrrin Malkys, and I'll let you know which temples wish to take advantage of the offer, and what options they wish to take in regard to your offer.'

He signed off, and Kyra looked at Kahmmhi. 'How is it going? Really?'

Kahmmhi smiled wanly. 'It's going to be a long project, and a lot of work. But it will keep a lot of my people too busy to spend too much time worrying about getting home and finding our Clan. And it presents a much different and more interesting challenge that simply trying to hunt the Borg would.'

Kyra laughed, knowing that Kahmmhi was being at least somewhat serious about the Borg, but she was used to Kahmmhi's sense of humor by now.

'Yes. Poor Borg. I'm sure that they'll be heartbroken that you're neglecting them to spend time building cities for the people of Bajor and helping us train our very own navy, such as it is.'

'Be careful of what you say and who you say it to, Kyra. We're going to be giving you carriers for your ships, and they're going to need someone who is intelligent, has combat experience, and who understands the Clan and how we think so that they can command their fleet. Someone who isn't worried about getting into the thick of combat and getting their own hands bloody. You just might get promoted from colonel to admiral before you even know what's happening.'

Kyra rolled her eyes, then they suddenly widened as she realized that Kahmmhi really wasn't kidding about that. 'Damn. Don't say things like that. Now I'm going to be worried about that happening, as well as everything else.'

Kahmmhi just chuckled and cut the connection. It was always nice to share the worries and let someone else take some of the stress. And thinking about it would help Kyra deal with things when her government realized that they were actually going to have a navy of their own, and that they needed a capable commander who had combat experience and understood both Clan technology and tactics, as well as how the Clan actually fought against their enemies.

Angela Richards wasn't the only press member in the room who realized that this was no ordinary meeting, and that it would be something that would figure prominently in history for a long time to come. Not only in the history of the Federation, but also that of the other member societies in the Alliance, and probably also in the histories of all of the societies that currently interacted with any member of the Alliance.

Ambassador Williams and Ambassador Sanchez stood and called the meeting to order. Williams smiled, then bowed solicitously to Sanchez and said, 'Ambassador, if you would do the honors.'

She smiled, bowed, and nodded. 'Thank you. Representing the Clan, we are proud to acknowledge Tahr Kahnnhi Kahmmhi, leader of this group, her Shadows, Virginia, commander of the scout claw, and their experts. Since I do not know any of them by name, would you be so kind as to introduce the rest of your party, Tahr Kahhni?'

Kahmmhi stood. 'Mena is in charge of armoring, Jay is in charge of weapons systems, specifically lasers, Julie is in charge of propulsion systems, specifically gravitics, Lori is in charge of stealth systems, and Kehhn is in charge of construction, specifically structural integrity of your new ships.' She smiled. 'We didn't bring any of the experts in general construction because they're currently busy doing projects on Bajor for the Bajorans.'

'Thank you, Tahr Kahnnhi. Representing the crew of Voyager, we have Captain Catherine Janeway, science officer Tuvok, science officer Seven of Nine, pilot Tom Paris, and chief engineer B'elana Torres. Because of their unique position and current situation, they are not currently considered to be members of either StarFleet or the Federation for the purposes of our meetings.'

Roy Buckingham spoke up. 'I understand that you agreed to those terms when Kahmmhi suggested them, but I'm sure that there are going to be some questions asked about how or why that was decided. Is it possible to explain that a bit more fully so that we have an explanation to give to the public when this is released?'

'The current crew of Voyager is very small compared to what it should be, and is comprised of almost equal numbers of Federation personnel and members of the Maquis. They were forced by circumstances to join forces and cooperate in the interests of their very survival when they suddenly found themselves transported far across the Delta quadrant by a vastly technologically superior race. And because of the circumstances that they were forced to deal with, including a total loss of contact with StarFleet and no hope of support or rescue unless they spent seventy years traveling at high warp speeds just to reach the Alpha quadrant once again, they were given blanket amnesty for all of their past actions prior to their arrival in this system.'

Buckingham nodded, realizing that blanket amnesty meant that even if they had been violating all kinds of regulations, the Prime Directive, and waging open warfare on technologically inferior races, nothing would ever be done to them. 'Thank you. That does explain their status as a separate group, even though they are wearing StarFleet uniforms.'

Fitzsimmons stood. 'And is there any special reason why they were given complete immunity?' He also realized exactly what that could mean, especially if Voyager and its crew had resorted to stealing what resources they needed for their own survival from any races that they had run across, or if they had actually violated the Prime Directive and traded advanced technology with societies that weren't ready for that, or that hadn't known that there were other races or species beyond their own planet.

Sanchez smiled. 'Yes. Actually, there is. We wanted to gain the improved technology that they had already either discovered or created on their own, and which they had further modified and perfected with the help of the Clan. If we wish to get that technology, it's only fair that we do something to properly compensate those who developed it in the first place. They have absolutely no reason to even want to help us if all that they can look forward to is a long prison sentence or worse.'

'I thought that you just said that the Clan had developed the technology.'

'Actually, I said that they helped the crew of Voyager improve and perfect the technology that they had created for their own ship. Unlike the rest of the Alpha quadrant, they had no idea that the Clan even existed, and they discovered ways to improve cloaking beyond even what we managed to do with the Clan's help, and they not only discovered hyperspace and a way to enter the hyper streams on their own before they even met the Clan, but they also discovered a way to use gravitics for propulsion using our current technology as a base. The Clan didn't know how to help us develop that in the limited time that they were going to be here, and trying to give us gravitics that worked like theirs did would have been very dangerous, since they didn't know how to do it safely with the materials and technology that we had to work with.'

Fitzsimmons nodded, and sat down, so Sanchez continued the introductions.

'We have Captain Benjamin Sisko, Commander Worf, Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax, and Chief Miles O'Brien here acting both as experts in their own fields and experts on dealing with the Clan so that they can explain things to us in ways that we can more clearly understand, since they've dealt intimately with the Clan for an extended period of time before. And Admiral Yamato, Admiral Korg, Admiral Karv'Tarek, and High Captain Sorn'Kek are here so that the military knows exactly what changes they are going to be expected to make in their fleets and their ships when we get this technology into production and start upgrading their ships and weapons.'

Sanchez sat down, and Williams nodded. 'I believe that the members of the press are familiar with all of the representatives of the various branches of the Alliance, but for the record... Representing the Federation, we have Councillor Connie McNamara, Councillor Mike Andersson, Rear Admiral Nancy Thompson of Federation Security, with Ambassador Sanchez and myself in charge of overseeing the meetings. Our science experts are Dr. Irving Michaelson, expert in quantum physics, Dr. Jillian Nakamura, expert in propulsion, and Dr. Vrron Koryll, expert in theoretical physics. For the Klingon Empire, we have Ambassador Krang and Dr. K'ehlynn, their expert in physics and cloaking technology. For the Romulan Empire, we have Ambassador Mek'Vihm and Dr. Tahl'mahn, their expert in physics and propulsion.'

'You are all well acquainted with your Federation Press Office liaison, Angela Richards. And I'm sure that all of the viewers in the Alliance will be able to read and hear your own names during the broadcasts of the material that you are allowed to release to the general public. We all realize that there are going to be some things which will be discussed during these meetings which have to be restricted for security concerns.'

Williams smiled and nodded to Kahmmhi. 'Since you are the one who knows what we all need to understand about the technology and the limitations that we will have to deal with, we will turn the floor over to you, Tahr Kahnnhi.'

Kahmmhi smiled and stood. 'The Clans are much more informal about their meetings, since we typically have very little that is considered to be sensitive information that must be kept from our enemies, and even less that is even kept from our own people in general. My experts are here simply to explain things so that there are no misunderstandings. How we helped Voyager achieve a particular capability, why we did it, and what the current limitations are. Most of that can be better covered by the members of Voyager's crew themselves, since they are the ones who had to develop the technology initially, and who had to deal with it on a daily basis while we made our way back through hyperspace to the Alpha quadrant. They don't have sensors like our own, so their logs show what you can expect to see in any of the systems that you visit using their hyper maps much better than any logs that we could give to you would. There are some things that we can detect that your own sensors won't show you, and others that you can't detect without risking letting the inhabitants of those systems know that someone is there and that they are being scanned.'

Several of the experts nodded their heads, but most of the official representatives looked at least somewhat surprised by this information.

Kahmmhi pointed to Janeway. 'Perhaps we should start by having B'elana explain how the stealth that your ship has was developed, and what its limitations are.'

B'elana stood and began to address the representatives and experts. It didn't take long before everyone in the room realized that she knew more than most of the experts in the field about not only the nuts and bolts of her systems on her ship, but also the theoretical physics behind how and why they worked. It took several hours for her to go over all of the details about how they had developed their own version of cloaking and how it worked, and then explain how the Clan had helped them upgrade their systems to actually develop the first working stealth systems on a Federation ship. The amount of modifications and the adjustments and changes that feat had required were staggering, but they had been accomplished in just a matter of months with the help of the Clan techs.

They broke for lunch, and after lunch, B'elana answered all of the questions that the representatives had and helped their experts explain how well the systems worked with their technology and what their limitations were.

As they were breaking for the day, Andersson shook his head. 'I can't believe that we covered that much material just concerning stealth technology.'

McNamara nodded, but they were interrupted by Fitzsimmons. 'Councillor, what do you think of the extremely slow pace of the meetings so far?'

Andersson shook his head in disbelief. 'Slow? I know that we were fully briefed during our trip to give us all at least some background to help us understand all of the topics that we had to cover, but the amount of material that we covered today should have taken a full week of meetings for us to understand everything. I can't believe how FAST we're getting through this material. Though I'm sure that the rest of the presentation that Miss Torres will give us will take much longer. The other modifications that were made to Voyager were both extreme and very extensive, and she will have to explain everything regarding the changes in structural integrity, materials, stress loads, internal integrity fields, armoring, weapons, and propulsion.'

Marlena Hargrave smiled as she moved over to stand near them. 'That sounds like a very impressive list. It sounds almost as if they actually put the ship into a starbase drydock and rebuilt it completely.'

McNamara nodded. 'From the reports that we were given en route, they almost did. Only the Clan considered it to be nothing more than minor modifications, and said that they could have done it much more quickly and done a much better job if they'd had an actual shipyard with them so that they could have done it over completely using the techniques that are designed to actually build the systems instead of just the equipment and materials that are supposed to be used for minor repairs. They could only do it so well because Voyager is closer to the size of their small craft than any actual fleet ship that they have.'

'So she will have to cover the bulk of the presentations?'

'Many of them. Tuvok and Seven of Nine helped her with the cloaking, but they were busy working with other things when the Clan redid the systems to give them stealth, so she was the one who was working with them on a daily basis, and the one who had to know of and approve all of the modifications that were made so that, as chief engineer, she could do her job and maintain and service all of the systems on the ship.'

'And who will do the other presentations?'

'Paris and Seven were responsible for the work on both gravitics and hyperspace, as well as modifications to the shuttles to make them armored and armed with the best tech that they could get from the Clan that would work within our space, materials, and technological limitations. Torres did help with the construction of the first of their actual gravitic drives, but didn't have much input on the testing and modifications afterwards. Seven did a lot of the scientific work, and Paris did all of the piloting and learning how the new systems handled under actual flight conditions. Tuvok helped all of them on almost all of the projects with various analyses and calculations.'

'And how long do you expect the rest of the meetings to take?'

'Several weeks, at the very least. There are some areas, especially on propulsion, weapons, and armor, where the military and fleet commanders are going to need a lot of specific information so that they know exactly what we are going to be doing to all the ships in their fleet. They have to learn the new technology as it is put in, and then become accustomed to its use and both the capabilities and limitations that they have to work with.'

'Thank you, Councillors.'

They smiled, and used the break that Hargrave had given them to leave and evade any more questions from Fitzsimmons. Nobody doubted that he was a good reporter when it came to many different cultures and many different types of stories. Unfortunately, he had a habit of rubbing people the wrong way, and of being a definite irritant at times. That could be very bad when you were dealing with the Clan. And none of the representatives were very fond of his abrasive tactics, either. He always seemed to be trying to elicit an emotional response or reaction in order to get someone to "slip up" and reveal more than they intended to, or otherwise would have, if they hadn't been rattled by either his question or the way that he had phrased it.

**Part Three**

**The Best Laid Plans... Often Get Changed Dramatically**

Two weeks later, the representatives were amazed to be going over the summary of the previous meetings already. They had met six days a week, only skipping the Clan day of rest. They had learned about everything that had been done to Voyager, either by its own crew or the Clan, and how the shuttles on board had been turned into devastatingly powerful fighters that were heavily armed and armored. Only the fact that Voyager could now open a hyperspace portal had allowed the Clan to make some of the upgrades that they had and still make it so that the Federation and the Alliance could replicate the results for themselves with their existing technology. Access to hyperspace allowed them access to vast amounts of antimatter, and that was critical for them to employ some of the construction methods that had been used to improve Voyager, especially when they required the type and amount of materials that they did.

'That is a LOT of antimatter.'

'Not compared to what is now available to us in hyperspace. And using the types of reactors that they do, we don't have to deal with warp plasma and other things for just generating power. Planetary reactors could be made extremely safe, small, and efficient.'

'Much more efficient than our current matter-antimatter reactors, but still, nothing compared to those that are used by the Clan.'

McNamara rose, clearing her throat softly. 'Thank you, doctors. We get the picture.'

The scientists sat down and continued their conversation much more quietly as they went over the finer points of their analyses with each other. They were still very enthusiastic about their findings and what it would mean for their ability to improve things in the future.

'Now that we know how and what we have to do in order to improve our ships and add some of the systems that are now available to us, are there any questions?'

Yamato nodded and stood. 'Tahr Kahnnhi, can you tell us how long it will take to begin upgrading the ships that are currently in this system?'

Kahmmhi looked at Virginia, who consulted her comp and two of the experts that the Clan still had at their table. After a brief conversation, she nodded and stood.

'You already have most of the materials and equipment that will be required. And you can quickly harvest enough antimatter to begin additional construction and modifications. What you will need to do is get things organized so that we can help you with the first one or two ships from each fleet. Our assault frigates are going to be busy helping the Bajorans build their new fleet and showing them how the construction process is accomplished so that they can build and maintain their own ships as well. The SACs and SFCs will be able to handle two ships at a time, and the Rolling Thunder can cover building the third ship, as well has supplying support for the different construction battalions that are currently working on constructing cities on Bajor.'

'OK. And how long should it take to complete?'

'If we do one ship at a time from each fleet, we can gut it and start working from the inside out. Figure about a year and a half per ship for your larger ships, and about three to six months for your smaller ships. We can do two battleships, two battle frigates, and two warships for each group. After that, your experts and construction people will be on their own and your construction rate will depend on your expertise and commitment to fully completing the project.'

Yamato bowed very deeply. 'Thank you. We are greatly honored, and we'll make sure that we document everything that we can so that we don't end up making costly mistakes when we take over the construction of our own ships.'

Kahmmhi nodded and bowed, and the admiral sat down. She knew that they would make sure that each of their systems sent another battleship to the system to be worked on so that their defenses weren't reduced while the work was being done, and that they'd do the same when it was time to work on the battle frigates. The Romulans and Klingons wouldn't even have to worry about any force reduction when it came to the warships because both of them were using all of their warships elsewhere.

Korg and Karv'Tarek were busy discussing something between themselves, and finally Korg stood. 'Is there any way for our pilots to get training so that they know how to handle the new small craft? While I'm sure that Mr. Paris is fully qualified to teach us, and that he is very good at flying, there are going to be a lot of pilots and a lot of small craft.'

'We can make arrangements for them to learn on our simulators and spend some time drilling with our own pilots so that they learn how to handle the new small craft. Though that will have to wait at least a few months so that we can help you begin production of the actual shuttles and determine how they are going to be set up and how many of them each of your ship types is going to require.'

Korg smiled. 'We already have some of that information.'

'Very well.'

'The Romulans and Klingons have both determined that we will only use the larger shuttlecraft so that we have the most armor, room, and weapons systems. I believe that they require a crew of six to operate under combat conditions?'

Paris nodded. 'Yeah. Six will handle it well, and make sure that you don't have any problems operating all of the systems simultaneously while still maintaining them and making any necessary repairs. And they can handle the life support for that many personnel for a long time without landing to take on additional consumables.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'And do you have any idea how many shuttles you're wanting to have on board each of the different types of ships yet?'

'Yes. We can't get enough of them built for you to train that many crews while you are still here, and we don't have enough personnel ready to begin training right now, but the crews that you do train can train additional crews as we get all of the craft built and recruit enough volunteers to man all of them. Our current goal is for each battleship to carry four hundred fighters, each battle frigate to carry seventy five fighters, and each warship to carry twenty five fighters. Once we begin building larger ships, we can increase the number of fighters and also work on other types of ships, such as landing craft. For now, we'll stick with something similar to the landing craft that you're building for the Bajorans and use them to transport troops.'

'Those are fairly large compared to your ships and the available space that you currently have. Do you have any idea how many of them that you're wanting to put onto each type of ship?'

'Two to four on each warship, since they're about the size of the Voyager. Ten to twelve on each battle frigate, and twenty-five to fifty on each battleship. As for the troop transports that we have, we figure that they can each handle about fifty troop transports and a hundred fighters.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'We can make those modifications, and even have our experts work out ways to use the structural integrity of the landing bays to improve the overall structural integrity of the ships. You will be crowded, at least somewhat, with that many ships and personnel on board the ships.'

'We'll take that risk. The life support systems that you use, and that we can build on our ships with independent power sources, should be capable of supporting that many people easily, even if all of the redundant systems fail.'

Virginia went over the notes on her comp quickly, then nodded to Kahmmhi, indicating that they were correct and that they weren't being overly optimistic about what their basic life support could handle.

'Virginia agrees, so we can work things out and get it going for you. We should be able to get everyone trained for the two ships of each type that we're helping you build before we leave this system.'

Roy Buckingham spoke up. 'Tahr Kahnnhi, I realize that I probably shouldn't be saying this, but the timetable and the amount of work that you're committing your forces to doing is going to cut things very close to the time that you have to be at the anomaly to see if you can get home again, isn't it?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'We are aware of that possibility. The worst that can happen is that we are stuck here for another few decades before we can even figure whether or not it's even possible for us to get back to where we came from and rejoin our Clan by going through the wormhole that brought us here in the first place. We're willing to take that risk.' She smiled. 'Don't worry. We are very good at making deadlines and determining how long a building project should take. Our experts have already spent years working out the details of the best way to upgrade and modify the ships that we gave you after the end of the Dominion War, depending on what changes you were willing or able to make, of course.'

Buckingham nodded, realizing that a few decades wasn't exactly all that long a time for Clan members. They spent five decades just completing their Basic training before even deciding if they wanted to try to enter the offensive forces for their Clan. And it could take centuries to become a fully trained Assault Marine or Raider.

Virginia smiled. 'I'll meet with your fleet commanders tomorrow and go over the various types of plans and layouts that we came up with to minimize the amount of work and materials required to make the changes to your ships while maximizing the gains that you would get from doing the work.'

The military commanders nodded their assent, knowing that she would give them more details after the meeting ended.

There didn't seem to be any more questions, and things seemed to be winding down. Fitzsimmons spoke up from his vantage point where he was recording the proceedings. 'Tahr Kahhni, if you don't mind, there is one question that really hasn't been answered during these proceedings.'

'And what is that, Mr. Fitzsimmons?' Kahmmhi smiled very brightly at him, appearing to be very calm and relaxed.

'I know that we get a lot of things out of this, and that you're helping us. But exactly what are you actually getting out of all of this? We really can't give you much of anything that you don't already have.'

'We have acquired some things from your civilizations already, Mr. Fitzsimmons. We have agreements that allow us to trade on friendly terms with the members of your Alliance, and that benefits any Clan that may find itself here, however unlikely that may be. We have made some friends, and that is almost as important to us. We have received some things that we might not have ever had otherwise, simply because our own research and interests never went down certain scientific paths. And we will know that we have warned you about the dangers that are all around you, and that could become imminent dangers long before you would have a chance to prepare for them if you waited until you had discovered for yourselves that there was a problem before even beginning to make your own preparations.' Kahmmhi smiled, looking very happy. 'And we have given you the resources and training to allow you to defend yourselves from those dangers.'

'That seems to be very important to you, for some reason. May I ask why?'

'Because the Clans strive to protect humanity from external threats to their existence. We can't stay here and protect you ourselves, so the only thing that we can do is teach you how to actually fight and wage a real war for yourselves. If you learn the lessons and utilize them properly, you should survive. If not, well, we did our best. And as my grandfather has told me many times, survival is nature's way of eliminating those who aren't fit from the gene pool. Usually, it works. Sometimes, though, conditions are such that all survival means is that you got lucky. Until we came along, the Consortium was surviving simply by overwhelming those who were more fit for survival by sheer numbers. And just as you can't breathe under water without specialized equipment, you can't survive when you're buried under six meters of Graks and their filth.'

'OK, but what does that mean?'

'That you have a lot of potential enemies around you in the other quadrants, and possibly some in the vast, still unexplored regions of this quadrant as well. If you want to survive against them, and not be overwhelmed by sheer numbers, then you need to start making preparations before they start jumping on you en masse and trying to eradicate your species and your civilizations. Once they realize that you're here and start attacking you, you could end up being overwhelmed by a war of attrition. Even if none of the civilizations that attacks you is capable of defeating you militarily on their own, and even if they don't join forces against you.'

'Can you explain how they could overwhelm us using that method if none of them are able to defeat us and they don't join forces?'

Kahmmhi smiled, trying not to look at him as if he was some retarded child who hadn't learned how to think on his own yet. Five year old children in the Clan knew enough about warfare not to have to ask a question like that. 'Well, if one group attacks you and is defeated, then even if others are attacking them and taking over their space while they aren't able to defend themselves properly, there is also the possibility that another group will attack you before you can recover from your losses, hoping to be more successful while your forces aren't at full strength. Even if the first or second such attack doesn't work, eventually, if there are enough of them coming at you in sequence, they will wear your forces down and defeat you militarily.'

'And if we realized that something like that was starting to happen, what would our options be if we wanted to survive and not be subjugated or enslaved?' Fitzsimmons seemed rather pleased with himself for coming up with that question. He was certain that her response would be newsworthy.

'Well, in that case, there are several options, depending on how your people are willing to change their current beliefs and social values. First, you can devote much more of your resources and materials to armaments and defenses than you currently do, and build larger, stronger, and more numerous fleets and ships so that you can defeat the enemies that are attacking you without taking more losses than you can replace. This would require you to give up many of the luxuries that your people currently consider a minimum lifestyle, even with all of the power that the antimatter that you can now collect would make available to your civilizations.'

Fitzsimmons wasn't the only reporter who was now looking at her as if they were in shock, and there were also some of the delegates who weren't looking very pleased with what they were hearing.

'Second, you can devote slightly less resources and cut back on your current lifestyles less drastically if you can get enough forces trained and have them trained so that they are aggressive enough to destroy the enemy much better than your current forces can.'

Some of the military representatives were almost smiling as they realized that she was sowing the seeds for their future fleet expansions, since this would at least be a much more appealing alternative than the first option that she had given them.

'Third, you can start building ships that can transport large numbers of civilians and support them almost indefinitely in space. Your generational ships will allow you to flee if your civilizations are defeated, and save at least some of your people. Once you run far enough, you should be able to find habitable planets and settle there until the enemy expands far enough to make contact with you once again.'

All of the delegates looked almost embarrassed at hearing that option, and the military personnel were clearly outraged by the thought that they would be put in the position of not being able to protect their people and their governments from outside threats. Some of them were even more incensed at the idea that their governments could potentially put them in the position of having to run and protect the chosen few who could fit on their fleets of escape ships simply to prevent the total annihilation of their race. Of course, the military realized that they could only do so much with the materials, troops, and weapons that were given to them by their leaders.

'Fourth, if you don't want to run and hide, and if you don't kill off so much of your military that you don't have enough of them left to do anything with, you could build generational ships and go Clan on them. Especially if they don't have the technology to use hyper and you do. Then you could harass them and destroy their forces whenever the odds favored you, eventually wearing them down and driving them out of your space so that you could reclaim it and begin resettling your people who wanted to live on rocks in the systems that were still fit for habitation and hadn't been stripped of all of their resources.'

Kahmmhi smiled very innocently. 'I'm sure that some of your military leaders can explain exactly what that would mean for your respective societies, Mr. Fitzsimmons. Though I can tell you here and now that if things don't start to change dramatically from how your current societies think and react, that option would only work for those who live in the Klingon and Romulan Empires. While there are some very good warriors among those who serve the Federation, they are hamstrung by the dictates of their civilian leaders. When they don't recognize that building the forces that are necessary to protect their civilization and society from external threats must take precedence over making life comfortable for everyone in their society, then they are risking losing everything when the first real threat to their society comes along.'

'That can't be true. You make it sound as if they're shortsighted, or too stupid to realize what danger there is around them. We've managed to survive against every threat that has come along so far. If our preparations weren't good enough to protect us, we would have had at least some indications of that already.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'I'm sure that the military doesn't need me to tell them how close you've come to being subjugated or eradicated by your enemies in the past, Mr. Fitzsimmons. They were the ones who were fighting and dying just to keep you and the rest of the Federation safe, even though so few of you even serve in your military, or even StarFleet, that you barely have a functioning military to begin with.'

'What are you talking about? We have fought and survived a number of wars, some of them very bloody, costly, and long, during the history of the Federation.'

Kahmmhi shook her head sadly. 'As I've pointed out to you before, including recently while we were all in the system that we went to in a hyper stream, none of your civilizations even knows what a real war is like. You fight and you have skirmishes that kill a few thousand on each side, and occasionally you have an attack that kills a few thousand more on a planet. But you've never had your entire race and your entire civilization put at risk of complete destruction during those wars.'

'But, since your lives are so short and so many of the people in your society seem to have short memories, I'll stick to recent events that you should all know about well enough to at least remember them and what could have happened. I'm sure that even you have heard of the Dominion War and Wolf 359. Why don't you think about what could have happened if we hadn't been here to help you during the conflict at DS9? Or if we hadn't stopped the second invasion fleet that was being assembled in the Delta quadrant around the home planet of the Founders themselves before it was launched and invaded the Alpha quadrant through the wormhole in this system? Or if the Borg had actually sent a real invasion force into your space instead of a single Borg cube at Wolf 359?'

Fitzsimmons still looked somewhat confused, but realized that asking any further questions to get a better explanation would just make him look stupid to everyone who saw the interview. All of the military personnel in the room were already giving him very disparaging or disbelieving looks, and he wasn't quite sure what to make of some of the expressions on the faces of the Federation delegates, either.

'Uh, thank you for your time, Tahr Kahhni.'

Kahmmhi smiled, ignoring the soft laughter of her Shadows as they kept their helmets on to hide their faces and keep anyone from seeing their responses. Fitzsimmons just didn't get it, and they all knew it. The thing was, they knew that there were others who just wouldn't get it, but those who did would heed the message and make sure that there were those who were prepared BEFORE the situation became critical. If not among the people of the Federation, at least that would happen among the people of the other two members of their Alliance. At least SOME of them would survive, even if the Alliance was destroyed and their planets were conquered. They could already tell that the Klingons and the Romulans had heard the message and understood it very clearly. They could only hope that at least someone in the Federation who had done the same would be capable of making their leaders understand that their very survival could be at stake.

Once all of the meetings were completed, there was one final meeting to determine what the Federation wanted to do regarding the crew of Voyager. After a lot of intense discussions, it was finally decided that they would allow any crew member who wished to remain in StarFleet to remain at his current rank or higher, depending on their evaluations of their performance and skills. Everyone was given accrued pay and leave based on their years of service since they had been drawn into the Delta quadrant, and given time to decide what they wanted to do concerning their future and their career with StarFleet.

While they were deciding, they could remain inside the Bajoran system and help with all of the training and the conversions of the Alliance ships. While the Clan would be doing much of the work and showing the Alliance personnel how to do the work themselves, the experts from Voyager's crew would spend the next several years helping to make sure that the Alliance personnel actually understood the science behind the new technology, as well as how it handled under various types of conditions.

Janeway and her senior officers were the most necessary personnel for this task, leaving the bulk of her crew to be reassigned to other vessels or to take some time off and recover from their long ordeal. Since there was no longer any problem with the Maquis, the former members of the Maquis weren't bothered about their pasts and were given a chance to simply resume their lives as they wished. With all of the back pay that was due to them, they had enough credits to start life over if they chose not to remain with StarFleet. Several of them pooled their resources, bought a small freighter, and began working as traders so that they could remain in space without being in StarFleet.

Voyager's experts became so engrossed in all of the work that they were doing that they didn't even realize that they were too busy to actually take any of their accrued shore leave, and that it was simply piling up even higher. And with each of them having their own personal synthesizer, they weren't really spending any of their credits, either, and that their pay was continuing to accumulate. All of them were doing everything that they could to bring all of the knowledge and technology that they had managed to discover or learn to use back to the Alpha quadrant so that they could make it safer. That had been their goal for a very long time now, and with the assistance that Kahmmhi had provided, they intended to make sure that they achieved that goal.

Now that the worst of the actual meetings were over, Kahmmhi could concentrate on taking care of the real work that had to be done in order to fulfill their promises to the Bajorans and the members of the Alliance. While she had been tied up handling all of the official meetings with the politicians and delegates, work had already been started on five different cities on Bajor, and the construction was progressing at an acceptable pace. Once the initial misunderstandings had been cleared up, the troops had gone to work and quickly established their normal working rhythm, and progress was steadily being made. One section of each city had been marked off, destruction of the buildings had begun, and construction of the new buildings was well under way. As each block or neighborhood was completed, Bajorans began moving back into the area, setting up their households, and resumed their normal lives. While it was still early in the construction, there weren't many complaints from the Bajorans who had new homes. They weren't displaced for very long, and they weren't really subjected to harsh living conditions while they were displaced. Everything seemed to be going smoothly.

Virginia had already met with Kyra and set up training schedules for the first groups of volunteers among the Bajorans. They were going to be training pilots, crew, and troops for the new Bajoran fleet. Even Kyra had been surprised by the number of volunteers for the new armed forces, and they had more than enough troops to fill all of the initial positions that would be available on the fleet's small craft, as well as most of the crews for the three carriers. Training wasn't scheduled to start for another two weeks, but then they would be immersed in training until they were ready for their first assignments. They all knew that they would be living and working on Clan ships for the duration of their training, and none of the Bajoran volunteers had any problems with that at all.

Kahmmhi had already met with the military commanders of the forces in this system, and the first set of ships that were going to be upgraded had already been selected and brought to the Clan for work to begin. The personnel who were going to be learning how to do the modifications were already there, so they would begin construction after the next rest day.

She was sitting in Quark's eating breakfast when several people approached the table. She looked up, smiling as she recognized them. 'Hello. Please, sit down and join me for breakfast.'

They did, and she waited for them to place their order before asking, 'So, what is it that I can do for you?'

McNamara and Sanchez both smiled nervously at her. 'This isn't official or anything, but we just wanted to talk with you and get to know you better.'

'And you had a few questions.'

'Yes.' They looked at each other, smiling as they realized that they had answered in stereo.

McNamara sighed. 'We've been discussing what you said at the end of the last formal meeting. Are you serious about what you said?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Unfortunately, yes. From what we have seen of the combat potential of the various threats that we warned you about, and from what we have seen of your societies and your own combat potential, you have a serious problem if things don't change very drastically from how they are right now before any of those empires reaches your space.'

'We may not be really aggressive, but we don't intend to just cut and run until we find a safe place to hide and start our civilization over. Not only would trying to do something like that cause us to lose the majority of our population, but we'd lose much of our technology, resources, and civilization in the process as well.'

'That is a serious risk, and it's probably true. I mentioned that option only to be thorough, since I knew that you would probably not choose to do something like that except as a last resort. It's a measure that would be taken in desperation, since it wouldn't have been planned out, and it wouldn't allow you to save more than the bare minimum of your population and your technology. If you managed to get out ahead of your enemies, you'd probably have all kinds of small craft forming some huge fleet, carrying whatever food, supplies, and personnel they could cram on board, with very little planning or organization. What few armed ships there were to escort them would be the remnants of your fleets or your defense forces, and you'd have to worry about losing ships as parts wore out or they couldn't be properly maintained. You could even lose ships as they lost their warp capabilities, mainly due to lack of dilithium crystals or something like that. Something that you couldn't use the synthesizers to create or replace for you easily.'

Both women shuddered as they listened to her description. 'Yeah, we hadn't thought it through that far, but it's not something that we want to think about. We'd rather do anything that we could to avoid having that happen.'

'I don't blame you, ambassador. As I said, we didn't think that was likely to happen simply because it was something that you'd want to avoid if at all possible.'

'And the other scenarios that you described?'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'That is up to you. Your military is trying to expand their fleet right now, and they are trying to increase the number of personnel that they're training so that they can fully crew more ships, as well as the current ships, and get the personnel who would be required to man all of the small craft that they're wanting to build. They are also trying to train their troops to be much more aggressive and combat capable so that they can defend your systems better than they currently can. If you are willing to allow them to do that, and encourage many more of your people to join and serve in your defense forces, then you should be able to avoid the option of last resort. Though I think that building at least some ships that could be quickly converted to be capable of carrying large numbers of civilians would be prudent.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Well, think of it this way. If you do that, you have the ships so that they can carry people away from a battle site if a planet is about to be overrun. But that isn't necessarily the only reason that you might need to evacuate a large number of people from a planet, or move people from one planet to another in large numbers. Having the ships available and using them for other purposes when they aren't needed is one thing. Not having them when they are needed is another. It's not like the ships can't be used for anything else, you know.'

McNamara nodded, realizing that Kahmmhi was making sure that they clearly understood the reasons behind everything that she was saying, and that the Clan regularly thought about all of these things and more whenever they did anything. That they were always planning for multiple contingencies and emergencies, and planning out how to use the materials in other ways until they were needed for a much more important purpose.

'About the "going Clan" option. Why did you say that it wouldn't work for the Federation, but that it would work for the Romulans and the Klingons?'

Kahmmhi chuckled softly. 'That's easy. They are both much more warlike and aggressive than the Federation is. Their people are used to giving up luxuries whenever the resources are required for their military so that they know that they will survive. They are willing to go on the offensive and do whatever is necessary to protect their people and ensure their survival.'

'And you don't think that we are?'

'There are some among you who are willing to do that, and even some among your leadership who understand that this is necessary for your survival in some cases. However, your people don't seem to want to risk their lives and serve in your military, especially in time of war. The percentage of your population that serves in your military or StarFleet is very small.'

'And what percentage of the Clan population serves in their military? It does take resources to support those ships and crews, you know. There is a limit to how much we can afford to support.'

Kahmmhi looked at McNamara and shook her head. 'You still haven't realized what all of the technology that we have shared with you even means. With the gravitic engines that most of your ships will have, and the ability to travel through hyper, you aren't supporting them. They will be able to gather all of the materials, resources, and energy that they need to support themselves. And they will be able to give the EXCESS to you to support the people on the planets that they're protecting. They could even support their families on other ships like the Clan does, and breed up their own replacements without requiring ANYTHING from any of you.'

'As for the Clan, about half of our adult population serves as members of the crews of either our Home Ships and Home Fleet or our warships, and that includes the members of our offensive forces. A small fraction of the other half serves as full time members of our defense forces on our Home Fleet. But when we are boarded, almost EVERY adult member of the Clan suits up and defends their Home Ship as part of the defense forces. Everyone goes through Basic, and everyone serves at least part of the time in the defensive forces. The adults who aren't in the offensive forces or defensive forces full time work as researchers, technicians, doctors, teachers, and raise the children.'

McNamara looked stunned. 'You mean that they could support themselves, and that it really wouldn't require us to decrease our standard of living to support a much larger military?' She couldn't help thinking of the ancient rules about how many people who were working in a society that it took to support one full time warrior to guard them and serve in their army. The numbers had changed somewhat with the advent of more and better technology, but the overall outcome was that the number of soldiers that a society could afford to support was still a tiny percentage of its total population.

'Once the new technology was spread throughout your systems and everyone had access to it, it wouldn't. Of course, until that actually happens, it will require some sacrifice on the part of your population in order to build and man the original fleets and get them on their feet. Once they are fully functional and capable of gathering materials on their own, they will be totally self supporting. If you don't make shipyards for them, they will have to have you build more ships and provide at least some training or crew members if they're not living with their families and breeding up their own replacements, but you will also be getting antimatter, resources, and other services and commodities from them, as well as protection and assistance in dealing with emergencies.'

Sanchez nodded. 'I see. So even if they don't really "go Clan" on us, allowing them to do something that would almost be the same would actually make them even more self sufficient.'

'Yes. But that's up to you and your culture. There are drawbacks to that approach, since they would eventually grow apart from those who still lived on the planets as they had less and less in common with them and began to develop their own culture.'

'Yes, I see. But supporting them heavily right now will pay off more in the long run, since it will give us even more ships to provide the core for training and allow them to provide better protection throughout the Federation with the ships that they have.'

'Yes. Single ships are great for exploration or patrolling outlying regions and reporting anything that they find, but they rarely have the ability to do anything about what they find if they run into a scouting force or a small task force or raiding force from another civilization. That is why you should maintain small groups of ships until you get enough of the fleet rebuilt and in operation to post small response forces throughout the Federation and the rest of the Alliance.'

'That was what the Klingons and Romulans were doing, but the Federation has been putting theirs out as single ships to provide more coverage until we get more ships built. It's taking a lot more personnel when they're all on larger ships.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'I realize that, but you need to be building the ships more quickly and getting them crewed and put into active service. It won't do you any good to have them if they're not crewed and combat capable when you need them.'

McNamara nodded. 'I've been trying to convince others in the Federation Council of that fact, but so far, they're not willing to increase the number of shipyards or the number of personnel who are doing the construction to complete the modifications.'

'If you can run interference for the StarFleet personnel who are on the fleet, I'm sure that they will do what they can to increase productivity and supply the necessary energy to increase the pace at which the new ships are being modified and brought into service. And I'm sure that they'll do what they can to increase the number of recruits who are going through StarFleet Academy and coming out prepared to serve on the fleet.'

'I can do that. And I'm sure that there are a number of others on the Council who would be willing to help me do that as well. But there could be problems if anyone finds out about it and objects to the use of more resources or other materials than the Council had already set aside for those projects.'

Sanchez smiled. 'You could always remind them of the terms of our agreements with the other members of the Alliance. We have to maintain at least comparable production and maintenance of our fleet to meet the agreed upon minimum requirements for our collective security.'

McNamara nodded. 'That's right. If the Klingons and the Romulans both maintain higher production rates than us, we could be held liable for violating the terms of our treaties with them. Then the Council would have to either increase our own production rates or withdraw from the Alliance.'

Kahmmhi grinned as she realized what that idea would do to the very people in the Council who were most likely to object to "wasting" resources on "unnecessarily large and powerful fleets". They were generally the same ones who didn't trust the Romulans or the Klingons, and would probably freak out if they thought that the entire Federation could be put at risk once the Romulans and Klingons, now staunch allies, were able to continue building ships that were at least as good as those of the Federation at a rate that would soon leave the entire Federation fleet hopelessly outnumbered and outmatched if they ever had to meet under unfriendly terms.

Sanchez shook her head. 'The first time that someone suggested withdrawing from the Alliance, someone is going to remind them that the other two members of the Alliance are now getting along quite well as they work together for their survival against a mutual enemy. And that their combined fleets will soon be capable of totally overwhelming all of StarFleet if we ever go to war against them again.'

'So, it looks like I'm going to be working as hard as I can to give Admiral Yamato and the other fleet commanders everything that they will need to carry out their duties and defend the citizens of the Federation from external threats.'

Sanchez and McNamara were lost in thought for the rest of the meal, so Kahmmhi left them to their thoughts and finished eating. It was going to be another long day with lots of things to go over and lots of details to handle. She was beginning to understand exactly why her grandfather wanted to go out and kill things whenever he got the chance. If it wasn't for the time that she spent killing things in the holodeck relieving her stress, she'd be so worked up that she'd have taken the entire claw back to the Delta quadrant to explore and find systems that had either Dominion forces or Borg in them just so that she could kill something.

Mena looked at the data that they'd collected on the ships that had been brought in to be upgraded with the new systems from the Clan, then shook her head in dismay. 'Comm, I need to talk to Kahmmhi or Virginia ASAP. We may have a serious problem.'

She kept going over the data as she waited, and just a few minutes later Kahmmhi appeared on her screen. 'What kind of problem, Mena? Please, tell me that it's not serious.'

'It's not that serious yet, but someone has been skimping on their construction.'

'What do you mean? Give me the specifics.'

'The Romulans and Klingons have both been doing the construction of the new armor on their ships exactly as we showed them, and their ships are exactly where they should be according to all of our calculations. In fact, both of them have actually put slightly heavier armor on their ships than we suggested. But...'

'How badly has the Federation been skimping on materials?'

'They haven't been skimping, exactly. They're meeting the actual armor thickness that we suggested, but they're not doing the composite construction according to the design that we showed them. Their layers aren't even properly bonded together. I don't know why they are skimping on their energy usage, but they are definitely using as little energy as possible to do the construction while still barely meeting the minimum accepted armor thickness.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'They don't seem to take our warnings seriously enough, so I guess that I'm going to have to give them a demonstration to drive the point home to them and show them exactly what kind of a risk they've been taking by doing something like that.'

Mena laughed. 'I'm sure that I'm going to enjoy watching the demonstration, but make sure that I get vids of their reactions, please.'

'Oh, believe me, I'm going to get copies of those vids for myself so that I can enjoy them as well. Thanks for letting me know about the problem so quickly. Maybe we can get them to correct the defect quickly enough that they won't actually be too far behind in their construction once we can get them to bring their construction rates up to what they should have been from the very first.'

'With the new source of antimatter to provide them with almost limitless energy, they certainly can't use that as an excuse. In fact, doing it right would have actually been quicker than doing it the way that they were, so that's probably why the Klingons and Romulans have completed more construction than they have, even though they have fewer shipyards to work with.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'I wish. The problem is political. But don't worry. I'm about to solve that problem for them with one very quick and dirty demonstration. You'll have a bit more work to do on the ship that you haven't started working on than you do on this one, but we'll save you some time on the removal of some of the hull armor so that you can get access to their engine rooms and put in the new engines.'

'You ARE going to strip their engines of AM and stuff and have a fully powered down ship before you do what I think you're going to do, aren't you?'

'Oh, yes. Definitely. We're not risking blowing the piss out of a poorly shielded AM reactor. The idea is to scare the piss out of them for their lack of attention to detail on the construction, not to destroy one of their new ships completely. They're going to need all of the ships that they can get.'

Kahmmhi ended the call and contacted Virginia to discuss what she had in mind for a demonstration. Then she called Korg and Yamato and spoke to each of them for a few minutes. Once she had explained the situation and told them what she had in mind, they both agreed. When she finished talking with them, she contacted the representatives from all three members of the Alliance, and then contacted the reporters to make sure that they would be there to record the demonstration. Once they knew what was going on, there wouldn't be any way for those who were holding up construction to maintain their positions and slow things down any longer. Trying to do that would be political suicide.

Everyone was assembled, though they were curious as to why they had all been brought to one of the smallest Clan ships. The shuttle door opened, and they found Kahmmhi and the captain of the ship waiting for them in the landing bay.

'Welcome aboard the Rattlesnake. This is Murhv, the captain of this ship.'

The captain nodded politely, then began leading them toward the bridge of the ship. When they arrived there, they were surprised to discover Admiral Yamato, Admiral Korg, and Admiral Karv'Tarek waiting for them.

'I don't understand what is going on. Why have we been called here?'

Kahmmhi smiled reassuringly. 'We've discovered that there are some problems with your construction methods, Admiral Thompson. While the Romulans and Klingons have been following our protocols exactly, the Federation construction crews seem to have been taking some shortcuts during the armoring process.'

McNamara looked confused. 'I don't understand. I know that the Council was consulted because the experts who were doing the actual construction wanted to modify the Clan construction methods in order to reduce the energy expenditures. It actually required us to add more armor to the ships, so why would that be a problem?'

'I'll allow your physics experts to explain things to you after we give you this brief demonstration. Just ask them to explain what the difference is between layers of protection that are just put on top of each other and the total protection that is provided by the armor that we use that is fused into the equivalent of a single layer.'

Andersson shook his head. 'But I've seen exactly how your armor is constructed and put onto your ships. It's put on in layers, just as our own armor is. So how could you possibly consider that to be a single layer?'

'When we construct armor, we use a method in the synthesizer that builds the armor as a molecular lattice that is connected in three dimensions. What you would consider to be three dimensional chain mail armor. The thing that makes it the equivalent of a single layer is that every time that we add a layer of armor, we bond it to the layer beneath it at the molecular level so that they are connected to each other almost as completely as they are to the layers of atoms in the same piece of armor.'

'But we used additional armor so that it was thicker than your minimum suggested thickness. It took more materials and time, but less energy.'

'Actually, it took less materials. Your armor hasn't been fully constructed in the same way as the armor that we showed your engineers how to construct. They've been taking shortcuts, putting in layers of actual molecular lattice on the edges and just doing construction using the normal molecular structure for the entire core of the individual layers of armor.'

'OK. But if there is a problem with our construction methods, why call us out here to tell us about it?'

Kahmmhi smiled, looking very cheerful. 'Well, telling you would give you the data and make you aware of the problem, but that doesn't necessarily get your attention and make you motivated to correct the problem. So we are going to give you a small demonstration that will make sure that you really understand the problem and its possible consequences.'

Thompson looked stunned. 'A demonstration? What kind of demonstration?'

'Well, you seem to think that your construction methods are just as good or even better than our own. I'm not sure who came up with that crock of shit, or what they were thinking, but I do find it interesting that nobody in your own leadership even seemed to bother questioning why we use the construction methods that we do, why we don't do the type of construction that you came up with, and why we decided to use our current methods after only having a bit more than seven thousand of your years of experience dealing with combat and combat damage to our ships.'

Thompson and many of the other Federation representatives looked very embarrassed, realizing exactly what Kahmmhi was implying. Someone clearly hadn't thought things through, and now she was going to show them exactly why the Clan didn't use their methods of construction.

'Now, we are on board a Clan assault frigate, the smallest ship type that we use in our fleet. The medium main railguns on this ship are capable of firing a railgun slug at point zero two five c. That is seventy five hundred kilometers per second at full speed. With no shields, that is good enough to cause damage to even the best shielding that your largest ships have on them.'

'OK. So what is the point of having us here?'

'I've already talked this over with your military commanders, and they've approved my use of two of their ships for this little demonstration. We're going to be taking off the hull armor and reworking the interior before putting the hull armor back on anyway, and I've already assured them that we'll also repair any other damages that occur. So, now, if you will kindly watch the screen, we'll show you exactly why the Clans use the construction methods that they do, and more specifically, why they do NOT use the shortcuts that your engineers and others determined were capable of providing the equivalent in protection to your ships and your crews.'

Everyone watched as a ship appeared on the monitor. Korg smiled. 'This is my own flagship in this system, responsible for commanding our defense force.'

Murhv smiled. 'Guns, target the aft section. Aim for their engineering section. We have to take that armor off anyway in order to get in and replace their engines. Don't worry about the AM containment. We've taken all of the AM off of the ship and powered it down.'

'Ready sir. Target is one hundred thousand kliks from us. Target locked, and we are clean and green.'

'Fire.'

There was a pulse, and then the brief wait as the railgun slug took just over thirteen seconds to cross the space between the ships. There was a brief flash, then they all saw that there was some armor damage to the ship, but nothing that was major.

Korg nodded his head in satisfaction. 'Good hit. How much damage to the armor did that cause?'

'Five meters is gone, and some of the armor under it is compressed slightly, but nothing major. No hull breach.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'It will save a bit of time to get into the ship, but won't add much time to the repairs, Korg. Your ship will still be ready on time.'

'That worries me less while you're in the system than it would otherwise. And I find it very reassuring to know that our armor will actually stand up to direct hits from railguns without the shielding. Though I know that if your PUFF opened up on us, the first salvo would vaporize the entire ship.'

Murhv laughed softly as Krohn said, 'Bigger guns, bigger hits.'

Everyone on the bridge was very impressed with the demonstration so far.

Yamato sighed. 'Target my ship. Let's get this over with.'

Murhv nodded, and the screen shifted to another ship.

'You took the ships that we armored from this system and put them to use elsewhere, giving Yamato and the forces that you left here ships that you had armored yourselves. Now, let's see exactly how accurate your own engineers and experts were when they determined that they knew better than we did how to armor a ship so that it would survive in combat.'

Murhv pointed to the weapons officer, and the railgun pulsed once again. Just over thirteen seconds later, their screen flared with the flash of an impact.

'Damage report.'

As the screen closed in to display the damage, nobody needed to hear what was being said to know that the ship was seriously damaged.

'Hull breached completely. At least seven decks penetrated. Atmosphere in that section is venting. Schematics show that the engine room is seriously compromised by the damage. If the reactors were going, they would probably be losing containment or dealing with plasma conduit ruptures and possible warp core overload.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'With the new capabilities that Voyager has brought to you, you really don't need to skimp on your energy usage. And now you realize exactly why we don't use your construction methods. We will remove all of the armor on the ships that we rebuild and rebuild them completely, but from now on, you are going to be responsible for armoring your ships properly. And, just in case your experts haven't told you, even though you added several extra layers of armor, you actually had half of the armor that the Klingons did. Which is why their armor survived and yours didn't. It will take more energy and raw materials to build your ships, but you'd better start using the proper techniques or you'll have to start building a LOT more ships just to keep up with your treaty obligations.' She chuckled. 'And, by the way, as is their right under the terms of your treaty of Alliance, your military leaders have already agreed that the current minimum requirements for ship construction are now a binding part of the terms of the alliance so that your forces are all capable of comparable performance.'

Everyone nodded, still staring in shock at the enlarged view of the ship that had just been hit by a single railgun slug from one of the smallest railguns that the Clan even used. Now they understood exactly why the Clan had been able to destroy so many of the Dominion, Cardassian, and Breen ships during the conflict at DS9. While their lasers had been visible and you could see how much damage they were doing to the enemy ships, they had also been firing their railguns almost nonstop during the entire conflict as well. And one single hit from one of the smallest Clan railguns there were would have been enough to cripple or destroy any of the Dominion ships that had been used in the attack on DS9.

Kahmmhi smiled, getting their attention by speaking. 'Now that we've made sure that you understand that we're not just nitpicking or trying to force you to use our methods for no real reason, I'm sure that you'll make sure that your troops aren't put at unnecessary risk of death by putting them into poorly armored ships. After all, if they fail in their mission to stop any enemy forces from invading your space, then you and the rest of the civilians in the Federation will soon be joining them in death when the rest of your forces suffer similar losses and the enemy is able to reach your population centers and lay siege to them.'

Everyone was still too awestruck to bother responding, so she led them back to the landing bay and watched as the shuttle took them back to DS9. She wasn't sure how long it would take for them to make their reports and get things started, but Kahmmhi was sure that the Federation would now take their obligations to meet the terms of their treaty with the other members of the Alliance much more seriously. And they would be even less willing to even consider withdrawing from the Alliance, since any future conflicts with the Klingons and Romulans would be fought at a serious military disadvantage if they didn't bring their fleet up to the new Alliance specifications.

As she had suspected, the demonstration had kept most of the Alliance representatives away from her and given Kahmmhi a few days to rest, relax, and catch her breath. She spent some time relaxing with Worf and Jadzia on the holodeck, talking with Kyra, and even occasionally chatting with Sisko when his schedule permitted. She did visit Garak's shop again, pleased to see that he was once again in business and relaxing. When she had left, he had been quite busy dealing with the problem of what to do with all of the Cardassian prisoners that were being held on Bajor after the end of the battle in which they had been captured. She found a few nice outfits that she liked, and bought them, though she was almost certain that Garak had undercharged her. She couldn't prove it, since none of the outfits had been marked with a particular price. Garak enjoyed selling his wares to people, and seemed to enjoy dickering about the price almost as much as the Ferengi did. Though Kahmmhi suspected that in Garak's case, profit wasn't the driving force in his negotiations, and that his opinion of the customer often played a more important part in how much he was willing to sell it to them for than the actual cost or the amount of profit that he was making on the sale.

And while she wasn't working all of the time, she did still have to address at least some problems as they came up. Virginia handled most of the stuff concerning the rebuilding and modifications that were being made to the Alliance ships, and she also handled most of the problems that the construction battalions ran into that required someone higher than the battalion commander to handle it.

Kyra kept her informed of what the Bajorans were doing, especially in regards to their new fleet and recruiting and training the personnel who would serve in it. Most of her reports were simply comments made in passing or brief comments that were made while they were eating and relaxing at Quark's, and Kahmmhi found that to be very relaxing and helpful. Kyra rarely requested anything of her, and when she did, she tried to make sure that it was in a more formal setting so that she didn't interrupt Kahmmhi's free time with business matters.

The one interruption that Kahmmhi did have was that the reporters were always seeming to want to talk to her and ask her questions. She avoided them most of the time, preferring to let them deal with their own leaders and representatives. If the Federation handled their media, then they could guarantee that they only knew the things that the Federation wanted them to know. And that they didn't report things that were supposed to be kept secret from the general population of the Federation. Of course, after the demonstration that she had done to show how poorly their ships had been constructed compared to those that had been built by the other members of the Alliance, the reporters were trying to find out more information about exactly how the Clan constructed ships and why their construction methods were so much better than those that had been used by the Federation engineers.

While they were generally kept away from her, they did manage to get close enough to ask her questions now and then. Generally, she answered their questions, or at least a few of them, before allowing her Shadows to convince them that they should end their interview and find something else to occupy their time. There were, however, a few times when she either simply didn't feel up to handling them and their questions or they began asking questions about things that Kahmmhi didn't want to take the time to explain fully to them yet again, and then the interview ended a bit more abruptly. While both Hargrave and Buckingham seemed to understand and accept the limitations, Fitzsimmons was just pushy and didn't want to take no for an answer. He didn't quite seem to grasp the concept that Kahmmhi and the Clan didn't care who his "friends in high places" were, and cared even less about their political influence and power. As far as the Clan was concerned, no Federation representatives that they hadn't met personally were more important than any other member of the Federation. They liked and respected a few of the people that they had met while they were dealing with the politicians, and the rest were barely tolerated.

After about two weeks of putting up with Fitzsimmons, Kahmmhi finally contacted Angela Richards and set up a meeting with her to discuss what she should do about Fitzsimmons. When they finally met, Kahmmhi carefully explained the situation to her, then waited to see what she thought of the situation.

'Tahr Kahnnhi, I'm very sorry that he has been bothering you so much. I assure you that I was totally unaware that he was making such a nuisance of himself. We are very sorry for any inconvenience that he has caused you with his behavior. I'll see about having him shipped out of this system right away.'

'That won't be necessary. I just wanted to find out what we should do about him. My Shadows are beginning to become irritated with him, and I don't want to hurt him just to make him understand that we're not part of the Federation and we're not restricted by your laws.'

Krohn nodded. 'He's a nuisance. Kind of like the constant buzzing in your head when you step into a freaking neural inhibitor field.'

Richards shook her head, looking confused. 'I'm sorry, but I just don't understand the reference. What is a neural inhibitor field?'

'A neural inhibitor is a device that is set up to emit a frequency that interferes with normal brain function on the species that it is attuned to. It's supposed to make you pass out and remain unconscious until the field is turned off. Unfortunately, our enemy discovered very quickly that the only effect that it has on Alphas is to cause a background hum or buzzing that makes them pissed off and increases their aggression. They tend to break the things just to eliminate the buzzing.'

'Ah. Thank you for the explanation. If you don't want me to send him out of the system, I'm not sure what I can do for you, Tahr Kahnnhi. He did have a lot of political influence to get him this assignment, and if you telling him to go away and leave you alone isn't working, then I'm fairly certain that he won't listen to me.'

Krohn smiled, then said something in Llyriana that made all of the other Shadows begin laughing. Kahmmhi tried not to laugh, but couldn't help herself and ended up smiling at the comment.

'What did he say that was so funny?'

'Since I don't want them to hurt him or really scare the piss out of him, and since we don't want him removed from the system, we could put him into a stasis tube. That would guarantee that he wouldn't bother us for at least a few days.'

Richards smiled. 'From what I remember hearing in the scientific briefings, all that would do would be to put him into stasis, and there wouldn't be any damage to him at all. Correct?'

Kahmmhi nodded.

'Well, then, if he insists on making a nuisance of himself, by all means give him a demonstration of some of the advanced Clan technology that you haven't chosen to share with us yet. I'm sure that he will find it absolutely fascinating.'

Richards managed to maintain her composure and say goodbye, but was laughing almost hysterically before she made it out of the door.

'We really should take her up on that offer, you know.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'I'll keep the option in mind, Brynhe. The man really is a pest.'

Jorvyl looked at the other trainees around him and shook his head again. 'Are you sure that we're going to survive this, sarge?'

'No, I ain't. Shut up and keep running. Quit wasting breath talking.'

Minah passed Jorvyl and glared at him. 'Lead, follow, or get out of the way, Jorvyl. I'm not getting my ass killed because you're a slacker.'

Nobody laughed at the comment because they were too tired and nobody else had enough breath to talk right now, but he saw several people smile and give her a thumbs up to show their support.

'I'm no slacker. I'm just not suicidal. Exactly why are we training so hard right now?'

'Because we can't even wear the lightest body armor that they have until we get stronger than we are now. Or do you WANT to go into combat without body armor?'

'Oh, HELL no. I've seen how energy weapons don't do anything to their body armor.' Jorvyl picked up the pace and passed Minah again. As much as he admired the view of her ass as she was running, he didn't want her to finish this run ahead of him. He'd show her who the slacker was.

Minah just smiled as Jorvyl kept running a pace ahead of her. He was cute enough, and he really seemed to be interested in proving that he was tougher than her. Maybe training wouldn't be as long, dull, and boring as she had thought it might be. It wasn't as if they had any regulations regarding two soldiers getting together and enjoying each others' company when they were off duty.

As they passed the ten mile mark, the sergeant called a halt and they all dropped their eighty pound packs to the dirt before squatting beside them. They all knew better than to sit on the ground when they hadn't been given permission to take a real break and relax. Clan instructors would throw them about ten or fifteen feet, and then throw their packs at them and tell the whole platoon to give them another mile before they earned a break. That was one lesson that they'd only had to experience once before everyone got the message loud and clear. Right now each training platoon had over one hundred of the most physically fit volunteers in it. At the end of training, they'd combine however many platoons it took to get up to the fifty that the Clan called a platoon. They did not expect to have to split any platoons to form new ones at the end of training. After surviving the first three weeks of intensive conditioning, nobody doubted that at all. The combat veterans among them had already told them that they'd had it easier in combat than anything that they'd endured during training so far.

They looked around them as the squad of Clan troops who was there to help them condition came out of stealth. You never really knew where any of them were at any time because they remained in stealth during a lot of the training, but they always seemed to be everywhere at once. They caught almost every single mistake, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem, and always seemed to respond to it almost instantly. Though none of the troops had any problems with them being there. They'd seen a Clan trooper grab a charging tarvyk and throw the dangerous beast about twenty feet. When the dangerous, very volatile beast landed, it had shaken its head and turned away from their group. Tarvyks were known to be extremely aggressive, but they didn't stay around whenever they realized that there was something that could actually hurt them. Their thick, tough hide generally protected them from almost everything short of a phaser, but the Clan member seemed to have actually hurt it. They had all seen how it was favoring the leg that the Clan trooper had grabbed when it had finally gotten to its feet and left the area.

'Give them twenty minutes to recover, sergeant. And have them drink fluids. Some of them are starting to overheat.'

'Yes, sir. Anything else that I should know, sir?'

'Ten more miles before they get to eat, then the final ten miles to get back to the base and take their turn on the firing range before they go to bed.'

'Sir, at the rate they're going, it's going to be dark before we get to the firing range.'

There was laughter from the Clan troops. 'You never fought at night, sergeant?'

The sergeant blushed, wishing that she'd learn to keep her big mouth shut. 'Uh, yes, sir. Most of my missions were at night during the war against the Cardassians. It was easier to avoid detection when you did missions when they couldn't see as well.'

'All of your missions won't be on board ships, and they won't be in controlled environments all of the time, either. Once you get to the Clan ships for training, we'll start you out by short exposure to two gravities during at least some of your training and during parts of your sleep cycles so that you get used to it. If we can get you strong enough, you'll be able to wear the lightest armor that we can make for you that's got better than level two protection without having to rely on power assists.'

'Yes, sir.' The sergeant was actually looking forward to that.

One of the recruits spoke up. 'So, how long do you guys have to train before you get your suits that have all of the assists and stuff?'

The leader of the Clan squad turned to him and took off her helmet, smiling cheerfully at him. 'Well, Basic is fifty years. Then you go into the defense forces. Most of those who intend to go into assault forces go into defense forces full time for a while to keep training and hone their skills. Then Assault Marine training is another fifty years or so, depending on your specialization and how rapidly you are able to complete the training. Females often have to take a few years off to have children because they're married by that time. Then, after a few centuries as an Assault Marine, if you're interested and you have the skills, you enter the Raider Training Course and go through fifty years of hell. Then you go into combat as a Raider.'

'And what about the armor and stuff?'

'You're issued your basic armor when you first go into Basic. Now that we have the materials and resources, all Clan armor has chameleon built into it and all Clan armor is generally molecular armor or the best grade under that for those who are civilians, depending on the availability of molecular armor at the time. As for power assists or other things that you seem to be referring to, there aren't any such inclusions in any Clan armor that is made for Clan members who are Alphas. I've heard that they do make lightweight versions of the molecular armor for Betas, and that some of them have auxiliary power assists to help them if they are tired or injured, but Deltas and Alphas don't use those features. We're strong enough to wear the armor without any modifications. Power assists could actually give away your position to the enemy if they were scanning and were capable of detecting the power signatures or any energy leakage, which is likely to occur if there is any damage to the armor during combat.'

Several of the Bajoran troops stared at her in shock as they realized that she could actually throw them around with ease simply because her species was that strong naturally.

'If you think that the Clan needs power assists, then perhaps we should make sure that all of the recruits see the video of Kahmmhi's encounters aboard DS9 during our previous visit to this system.'

The sergeant nodded, smiling eagerly at the chance to see that footage. She'd heard rumors about it, but the Federation was keeping the details of those encounters very quiet, and only verbal descriptions were available to those who hadn't been there and seen them with their own eyes.

'Yes, sir. That is a wonderful idea. We'll be looking forward to that with eager anticipation, sir.'

The Clan squad leader nodded, put her helmet back on, and smiled to herself. Then she keyed her external mic and spoke. 'OK, people. Load up and on your feet. Ten more miles and you get a half hour break so that you can eat and rest. Get used to the pace, people, because it only gets worse in real training before you get good enough to go into combat as ground troops.'

Everyone began pulling their packs on and standing up again, stretching their legs out. They were tired, and they'd be even worse long before they got back from this run, but they'd make it. Eventually, most of them would actually begin training for the positions that they had volunteered for. In the meantime, they had to get stronger so that they could actually wear the lightweight armor that the Clan was making for them. Ground assault troops had to have some kind of armor if they expected them to survive in combat, and their armor had to be good enough to face the various energy and kinetic weapons that they could reasonably expect to have used against them by smugglers, criminals, and troops from alien races in this galaxy. She wondered how the Borg drones would respond when they first discovered that they couldn't penetrate the armor that the troops were going to be wearing. They wouldn't be able to transform any of the ground troops and make them into Borg drones, so they couldn't assimilate them and keep them from resisting the Borg attacks. Oh, well. Sucked to be them.

Unlike the ground troops, those who were going to be pilots and crew for the various ships were taken directly to the Clan ships for their training. They found themselves in their own squadron. The smallest of the four training squadrons on board. The other three were comprised of Federation personnel, Klingons, and Romulans. They spent several hours a day training on the simulators, then spent several hours more training and conditioning so that they became stronger, faster, and tougher than they had ever believed possible. When they saw that the Romulans and Klingons, and even the Vulcans among the Federation volunteers, were having difficulty doing all of the physical conditioning, nobody complained. Not when hand to hand consisted of being thrown around by some tiny Clan female who looked too hot, frail, slender, and young to actually be a warrior, much less a Clan hand to hand combat instructor. Their first lesson in hand to hand, when they had watched huge Klingons, who'd all had a LOT of combat experience, get put into sick bay, was that looks could definitely be deceiving. And none of them EVER forgot that lesson.

For the Clan instructors, training was a blend of being harder than normal and softer than normal at the same time. The recruits weren't Clan, and they were definitely fragile compared to any recruits that the Clan had ever had. At the same time, they were motivated, intelligent, and they did have their own doctors and medics, and they did have tech that could increase their healing rates dramatically, despite their lack of nanobots. They were harder on the troops mentally because they had to make them more aggressive and overcome their own social conditioning. They were softer on them physically because of their physiological limitations. In the end, the training was hard, but survivable.

For the recruits, the training was hell, but they endured it. Many of them were used to enduring suffering and pain in the interests of achieving their goals, so they put up with whatever the Clan dished out and came back for more. Most of them didn't even realize how strong they were becoming until their first shore leave where they were allowed to mix and interact with members of their own species again. After the first few incidents where people were hurt more than normal during fights or altercations, not to mention a variety of assorted accidental injuries, their respective governments came up with special uniforms to designate those who were assault forces who had been through Clan training so that everyone else would recognize them on sight. Even the Klingons were impressed with how much their warriors had improved in just six months, and the High Council began looking for a high G planet to use for training the rest of the Klingon troops in the empire so that their entire race could become stronger and better warriors.

As soon as they learned of the plans that the Klingons had, the Romulans adopted the same attitude and began looking for suitable training planets of their own. Both sides agreed that if they couldn't find separate planets that were reasonably close to their empires, they would share one training planet and let their troops train together so that they were motivated to achieve as much of their physical potential as they could.

Kahmmhi smiled as she went over the reports so far. They were making good progress on the modifications to the first of the battleships for each of the forces, and the assault frigates were actually doing very well on their own construction of the new carriers for the Bajoran Navy. They were paired up, and two were constructing one assault carrier while the other two were constructing the larger salvage carrier. Once they finished building the first assault carrier, they would begin constructing the second one. At the current rate of construction, they would complete the first assault carrier at about the same time that the larger ships completed upgrading the first of the battleships. The larger and more heavily armored salvage carrier would require about two and a half years before construction was completed, so it would be done slightly before the second assault carrier was finished.

Construction on the planet was proceeding very smoothly now that the initial problems had been worked out with the locals. At the current rate, they would finish all of the construction in the time that they had initially allotted for the work to be completed. If there weren't any major problems, they'd have plenty of time to get to the area where the wormhole was in the Delta quadrant, study it for any detectable changes, and then attempt to get back to their Clan when the wormhole was properly cycling and showed signs of being connected to the system that they had come here from.

All that they had to do was continue the training and building, make sure that the Federation and the other members of the Alliance paid attention to the details, and finish everything within the time frame that they had to work with.

Troop training was going very well at the moment, and all four groups were showing improvement that hadn't leveled off yet. Some of them were getting almost half a day at two Gs now, and their bodies were beginning to adjust to the strain and build much denser muscle than they'd had at the start of training. It could take years for them to show full growth to their potential, but they had the time to devote to that. And the troops were now well aware of the fact that the closer they got to their full potential, the easier it would be for them to wear the armor that the Clan was making for them. The power assists would help, but they couldn't do all of the work for them.

Tehra looked around the screen, quickly assessing the situation. They were totally outnumbered, and the ships that they were facing weren't fighters.

'Kragh me! Mank, do you see what I'm getting?'

'Yes. Calm down, Tehra. You know how to handle this situation.'

'I know that. But these are warships, and we're not sure what system they're supposed to be representing. You do remember that some of the systems that they found in the Gamma quadrant do use carriers as well, and while their fighters are vastly different from our own, they make up for quality with quantity.'

'So we take it slow and easy and don't give them good targets. Keep our shots short, sweet, and to the point and use shoot and scoot so they can't get a target lock. Just don't override your safeties on evasive maneuvers and we won't have any problems.'

'That's easy for you to say. Your claw hasn't been shot down nearly as often on average.'

'And yours does consistently better at dogfighting than mine does. So we play up our strengths. You provide cover and I'll do passes on the ships and see what we can do to them. Just keep your lasers to a minimum and use the freaking railguns. The slugs will do a lot as long as they're not running from you.'

'Roger that. Forming two squads and preparing for cover fire on your mark.'

The ships moved into formation, and Mank's group began their runs on their first target. He knew that they had problems when he heard Tehra swearing fluently in Llyriana. Damn, that woman had a way with languages. He hadn't heard that many identifiable words in Llyriana at one time in his training.

'What do we have?'

'Zingvir. They're small carriers for them, but we're still about to have our asses swarmed.'

'Roger that. Use your mines and take out any swarms as they gather and try to find out where you are. Keep your lasers to a minimum. They do use AM mines of their own, but they try to fire them and use mags to lock them onto your ship. Small, and not too powerful, but they'll still take a chunk out of your hull armor and hit you with one big shock to your compensators.'

'Affirmative. Switching to mines and readying for reloads. Going with single shots if we have to so that we don't have a lot of floaters drifting around.'

Within seconds, their sensors recorded a large number of small craft being launched from each enemy ship. There were literally thousands of them in the space around the ships now.

'You'd better switch your proximity detectors to larger masses if you want to actually make sure that you hit a ship and not just a bunch of mosquitoes.'

Mank laughed. 'Thanks for the reminder, but I got this. I think that there's enough of them for you to get some practice swatting mosquitoes for me.'

'Coming through. You should have a clear path for at least a minute, but after that, it's all bets off.'

'Roger. Light up the lightning bugs and we'll hammer our targets.'

Tehra's fighters went through and let off a series of charges, then pulled up and got out of range quickly. As soon as they cleared the immediate area, their mines began detonating, taking out a large number of the small craft that had just been launched. Mank's ships took advantage of the opening and went through, releasing their own charges so that they were closing on the first enemy ship. By the time they reached their proximity limits, there was one long, large explosion as ten AM mines detonated near the ship and blasted it. When all of the secondary explosions finally stopped, the ship was crippled and no longer showed any energy signatures.

'One down. Just about forty or so to go.'

'Yeah, Tehra. Clear us another path, and we'll take out the next one. Let's see how many we can get before they try to haul ass and go to warp. When they realize that they can't get a favorable outcome on the exchange rate, they usually disengage and study the situation before trying to repeat the experiment.'

At the end of fifteen minutes and the destruction of several more enemy ships, the rest of the enemy fleet began to withdraw from the system. They took their time and blew up a lot of the enemy small craft that had been left behind by the fleeing ships, and the sim was finally called.

'Wow. That was great. Can't do much better than that. No losses, and we drove them off.'

Tehra shook her head as Mank kept celebrating the victory. He turned to see their Clan instructor looking at them strangely.

'What's wrong?'

'Did you read the objectives for this exercise?'

'Yeah. Defend the system. Destroy as many enemy ships as we could. We did that.'

'You failed the mission.'

'What? What the hell are you talking about? We blew the piss out of five enemy ships, and the rest of them ran. And then we destroyed the fighters that were left until you finally called the exercise.'

'The mission was to destroy as many enemy ships as possible. You had twenty ships, and there were fifty enemy ships in the system.'

'Yeah? So? How the hell many of them were we supposed to be able to destroy, then?'

'Twenty would have been a barely passing grade. It would have destroyed enough of their force that the enemy knew that they were outmatched, and they wouldn't return to the system. A good commander would have had a chance to destroy all fifty ships. That would have been enough for the enemy to write this system off entirely as way too dangerous, and they wouldn't have bothered doing anything more than sending one or two scout ships to determine if their fleet had actually been destroyed or if it had just run into some natural phenomenon.'

'Twenty? How are we supposed to destroy twenty ships that large before they run back into warp?'

'I'll give your squadron a week to think about the proper answer and rerun the sim as many times as you wish so that you can try to figure that out on your own.'

The instructor walked off, and Mank looked at Tehra. 'What? Yeah, I know that I blew my cool with her, but she always manages to push my buttons and piss me off. If she wasn't an Alpha, I'd try to screw her.'

'Well, forget any ideas of that nature and concentrate on our problem. Because we have exactly one week to figure out this problem, and they're not going to be giving us any hints.'

'Well, what do we know?'

'We know that it has to be aggressive as hell, but they've constantly told us that ever since our training began. We have the smallest fleet around, and our system isn't going anywhere any time soon.'

'Yeah, but our system is so important that the Alliance has a fleet here to handle shit like that.'

'Yeah? And what if a larger force is keeping the entire Alliance fleet busy and that was just a flanking force that was supposed to hit them from the rear? Or what if we were out exploring and found them one hyper jump from our system, heading our way?'

'OK, OK. I got your point. Don't get your panties in a bunch, or whatever the hell it is that they keep saying to the women in the Clan.'

Tehra glared at him. 'You know, if you'd pay more attention to details, you'd know that the ladies in the Clan DON'T like it when guys that they're not sleeping with or haven't known a VERY long time say that to them.'

Mank laughed. 'Well, I can't change how long I've known you, but I'm willing to change the other option if that's what it takes to save my ass and get you into bed.'

'You are SO going to pay for that remark, Mank. But not tonight. Tonight I'm going to make sure that I DON'T give you what you want so that you'll focus on the problem at hand. If you solve the problem, you get to do what you want with me. If not, then I'm going to make you pay for that comment in spades for a very long time to come. That way you can sweat and worry about what I'm going to do to get you back. You're a guy. Even if I just beat you for that comment, you'd get off on it because you got to enjoy instant gratification.' She sighed. 'I will NEVER understand how guys think.'

Mank laughed. 'Good. That makes us even, because guys don't have a clue about how women really think.'

'Now, back to our problem. How can we possibly attack and destroy that many ships that large with only twenty ships? Even a full salvo from a ship isn't guaranteed to take them out, and specifically targeting their engines will keep them from running, but it won't keep them from launching all of their small craft.'

Mank sighed. 'We've got to be overlooking SOMETHING. Let's set up some sims and see what we can figure out.'

At the end of a week, their instructor showed up to see how they were doing. She looked over the log of the sims that they had done, then shook her head.

'You people are about all that your planet and your system have, so you need to think about how to handle as much as you can on your own. Unless, of course, you LIKE having to wait for the Federation to get around to worrying about having to protect you from some danger or other.'

'No, sir.'

'Well, you have generally improved, and you have been trying to boost your scores and your performance. Not a bad effort, but you still fail the exercise.'

'Sir, how can we possibly pass the exercise? We've tried absolutely everything that we can think of, and we've even trained repeatedly, trying to improve our scores on the exercises where our performance was the best.' Tehra was trying very hard not to sound upset at failing.

'I can see that. But you're thinking of your ships simply as fighters, and not utilizing the full capabilities of the weapons systems that you have at your disposal.'

'How else can we use our small craft?'

'It's not so much how you use the small craft as how well you use their capabilities.'

Tehra looked just as confused as Mank. 'What does that mean?'

'OK. The enemy can't see your ships. Correct?'

'Yes. They can't detect anything with better cloaking than they have, so they can't tell where our ships are unless we fire our lasers.'

'And they don't know that you're there until you launch your first attack. Correct?'

'Yes, sir. But we can only attack twenty of their ships at a time, and even our best results using full salvos of AM mines weren't good enough to let us pass the exercise.'

'That's correct. Why is that?'

'Because we didn't disable all of the ships at once, and those that weren't disabled fled while their small craft formed a shield around them to limit our access to their ships for another pass. They could get to warp and flee the system before we could track them down.'

'So, if they can flee once they know that you're there and you begin your attack, and you can't attack them all at the same time with only twenty ships, what other options do you have?'

Mank smacked his head. 'Damn. If we just land on their ship or hover over them and plant the mines on a remote detonation switch, then we can mine all of them and make sure that we're going to have good, solid hits out of every mine that we lose. Detonate them all at once and there won't be enough of them left that are only crippled for them to launch much of their fighter support in the first place. And if they can't run, we hunt them down and blow the piss out of them.'

Tehra thought about that for a minute, then looked extremely embarrassed. Their instructor laughed at her reaction. 'Honey, if you don't want him climbing between your legs, don't bet your body the next time.'

Tehra sighed. 'It's not that I don't WANT him, exactly. I wouldn't have made the bet if I didn't actually WANT him. I'm just embarrassed because everyone knows that I lost the bet.'

'Yeah, well, concentrate on running through the sim several times so that your units know how to carry out that type of attack, and try to get your time down so that you can do it quickly enough to keep the enemy from crossing the system under cloak and hitting your allies' fleet from behind while they're distracted taking care of the main fleet. And if you can get it done quickly enough and score well enough, tomorrow you will get to repeat that performance and then try to infiltrate the enemy's main fleet and destroy some of their ships with the same tactics while they're engaged in fleet combat.'

Tehra and Mank nodded, watching as their instructor walked off. Mank looked at her. 'You know, I won't hold you to the bet, Tehra.'

'You'd better. If we don't get rid of some of our frustrations, we're both going to lose it. And we both know that we can't sleep with anyone in our command.'

'Right. So, let's run the sims, then we can get dinner after we shower out and relax a bit.'

'Your place or mine?'

'Yours. I've got noisy neighbors.'

'Noisy? Jorn has his own quarters. I thought that Jorn had the quarters next to yours, and Kehla had the quarters between us. Who is sharing his quarters with him for you to have noisy neighbors?'

'They do. Kehla is bunking with Jorn. They go to Jorn's quarters.'

'Since when?'

'Since the end of the first week of training on board ship.'

Tehra rolled her eyes, looking exasperated. 'Why in the hell didn't anyone tell me that I've been going crazy with sexual tension for the past six months for no reason at all?'

'What do you mean?'

'I didn't go after you earlier because I didn't want Kehla to hear us. I never heard them because they were in Jorn's quarters.' She paused, then looked at Mank intently. 'If you knew that, why didn't you even try to get with me before this?'

'Duh. I wanted to get to know you better and wait for you to give me some signal that you at least liked me. If all that I wanted was sex, Kehla has a reputation you know.'

'Why in the hell do you think that I didn't go after you sooner? I didn't hear anything coming out of Kehla's quarters, and I figured that if she was considered a slut and she could go without sex for that long, I could go without sex at least as long as she could.'

Mank laughed, and she couldn't help but join him, realizing that laughing was the only thing for this situation.

'I will never figure out how the Clans handle that no sex before marriage thing. I mean, some of them go for hundreds of years before they even start looking for someone to be with. They MUST have a very low sex drive.'

Mank shook his head. 'Actually, from what I've heard, it's fairly high. They just redirect their energies into things like aggression, training, and killing their enemies until they find the right person.'

Tehra chuckled softly, looking around quickly to make sure that no Clan members, and especially not their own instructor, were close enough to hear what she was about to say. 'That certainly explains their extremely high levels of aggression, then. If I was going to live for millennia and I knew it, and I couldn't get laid for hundreds of years, I'd be out killing half of the galaxy as well.'

They contacted their crews on the com and quickly explained the new mission parameters and how they were going to accomplish the mission. Everyone quickly got the idea, especially their crewmen who would be handling the mines and placing them on the enemy ships. They began the exercise, finally looking forward to being able to complete this mission successfully. Clan training was a lot more taxing mentally than they had believed possible, and that was even more surprising to them than the physical endurance that the training required. None of them had believed that they'd have to do so much thinking for themselves, or that they'd be required from the very start to actually think for themselves and solve problems creatively using all of the techniques and information that they had without being shown how to properly handle certain types of situations beforehand. Now they were realizing that this was why the Clan fought so effectively. Every single warrior was encouraged to think for themselves and develop all of the skills that they had so that they survived and their unit benefited from their abilities.

The representatives for the Federation and the experts for the Klingons and Romulans stayed around for about six more months to personally watch all of the activities that were going on inside the system so that they could return and report their findings to their respective governments. Kahmmhi met with some of them regularly, but avoided meeting with others any more often than she absolutely had to. By the time that they held the formal reception to send the dignitaries off, she was very happy to see the reporters leaving the system. While only Fitzsimmons was a real pest, the others were beginning to grate on her nerves as well with all of their questions about things that she had been asked not to discuss with them. It seemed that was the way that their society worked. The officials in their government kept certain things from the press, and the press made it their life's goal to uncover those things and expose them to the general population, regardless of the threat that doing so posed to the safety and security of their civilization.

Krohn told her that both the press and the politicians were insane, and that they didn't have the sense of a five year old Clan child between them. While she reprimanded him for saying things like that in public, even if he was speaking in Llyriana, she privately agreed that he was probably being generous and courteous in many cases. While she had met some nice individuals during their time here, and could think of at least some people from each of the groups who were very intelligent and capable, there were simply too many of them that proved Krohn correct.

Kahmmhi managed to get through the formal farewells without incident, and was never so relieved as when the ship that they were on went to warp and disappeared from the system. At least now she could concentrate her attention and her time on dealing with things that were actually important. Like the construction projects that were currently being carried out on Bajor and in orbit around the planet. And the training of pilots for all four navies, as well as the personnel to man the ships of the Bajoran Navy that was being constructed as well.

By the time that the first set of battleships were done, the first set of five cities were almost completed, and many of the citizens of Bajor were now seeing firsthand how their lives could be improved by the new technology and everything that it had to offer them. Every new house was almost totally self sufficient for energy usage, and they all maintained very comfortable temperatures year round. What rainfall they experienced was run through the individual systems and kept in individual cisterns, with overflow going off to the city and the surrounding countryside to keep the natural cycles going. When an individual didn't have enough water in their cistern, they could either get water from the community stores or make their own water with their synthesizers.

Everything that was in the city was made so that it could be maintained by the Bajorans using their current technology. Even the mihlkyrrhnhm that was used on the solar panels could now be made if they were willing to use the synthesizers and provide them with sufficient energy for the formation of the panels. It was much too energy intensive a process for even the Federation to have considered doing before, but now that they had access to hyperspace and vast, almost unlimited amounts of antimatter, they could generate enough energy to do things like that. It also helped that their matter-antimatter energy conversion was now much better and more efficient than it had been, and that they were capable of making power sources similar to those that were used by the Clan, even if they weren't made of materials that made them quite as durable as the ones that the Clan made.

When the battleships were finished with all of their systems checks and had been certified, Kahmmhi called the fleet commanders and presented them with the ships. By the end of the first day, all three of them had contacted her and complimented her on the workmanship and the performance of their new flagships. Now that their own technicians and engineers had watched the modifications from start to finish, they had documented every step of the construction and testing, and all three groups were going to make sure that their governments had the new specifications and methodology completely spelled out for them so that all of the ships that were being made and modified at their individual shipyards could be brought up to the new specifications for their fleets.

Kahmmhi was expecting their responses, and knew that after the demonstration that they'd had a year and a half earlier, the Federation wouldn't be skimping on any of the specifications or taking any more shortcuts. Now that they had access to hyperspace and all of that antimatter, nobody in their Council could even begin to come up with a valid reason to cut corners or reduce the use of materials or energy for the construction of their fleet.

Kyra was surprised when she was called to the Rolling Thunder, though. When she arrived, she discovered that Kahmmhi had all of the Alliance fleet commanders on board her ship. Kyra definitely felt out of place among such high ranking military officers with such a vast amount of experience.

'I'm very glad that you invited me over to visit, Kahm, but I really don't know what I'm doing here.'

'Well, the thing is, you're the ranking military officer from your planet that we've dealt with, and you're the one that Bajor has used to represent them on DS9 for all of the political meetings that we've had involving treaties and other such...' Kahmmhi smiled, but didn't quite finish that sentence. 'I take it from your expression that you get my drift.'

The laughter of Korg and Karv'Tarek and the smile on Yamato's face indicated that they knew very well what Kahm thought of such things. As career military officers, most of them agreed with her, at least for the most part. All of the diplomacy and political maneuverings had their place, but it certainly wasn't in combat.

'Um, yeah. So, why AM I here today?'

'Well, we delivered their ships about a week ago, and all of them are happy with the modifications that have been made to their new flagships. Since your ship was finally finished, we thought that it was only fitting that you should be presented with your new ship with the appropriate military honors. After all, this is the first ship in the Bajoran Navy.'

Kyra nodded, realizing that Kahmmhi was right about that. It was the first ship in the Bajoran Navy.

'It is my distinct pleasure to present to you the first assault carrier to be completed for your navy. Do you know what the ship is to be called?'

Kyra shook her head. 'I have no idea. I had heard that my superiors told you that whatever name the Clan gave the ships was perfectly acceptable to them.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'We did some research on your culture. This ship, the flagship of your navy, is to be the Sword of Bajor. The assault carrier Lance of Doom will be completed in another eighteen months, and the salvage carrier Bounty of the Prophets should be completed within about one year.'

'On behalf of my government, I thank you for the ship. I'll be sure to inform my superiors immediately so that they can send over the crew and flight wing for the ship and put it into service.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Before you do that, why don't we all go over to the ship and do one last inspection? That will at least give you a chance to check the ship out for yourself before you have to get back to all of those boring official duties on DS9. Though I'm sure that the officer who's stationed there will have much more to do now that they'll be charged with handling all of the details of fleet traffic within the system, coordinating efforts with the fleets that are stationed here, maintaining training schedules for the fleet, handling transfers of personnel for shore leave, replacements, and the like.'

Kyra groaned, realizing that she was going to be forced to do a desk job with all kinds of paperwork and official interactions with dignitaries and politicians. She would have asked Kahmmhi to kill her and put her out of her misery, but she wasn't about to risk anyone in the Clan taking her seriously. With their reflexes, she'd already be dead before she even realized that they didn't know that she was just kidding.

They went to the landing bay and got aboard Kahmmhi's shuttle, taking it over to the Sword of Bajor. When they landed, Kyra was excited to know that she would be setting foot on the deck of the first ship in the Bajoran Navy. A ship that was larger and much more powerful than the Galaxy class ships that the Federation had used before the Dominion War, and which were still in widespread use throughout the Federation.

Kahmmhi motioned for Kyra to go ahead of her, so she led the delegation off of the shuttle and down the ramp. She was surprised to see that there were a large number of Bajorans already on board in uniforms that she didn't recognize, and that many of them were in combat armor. As she stepped onto the deck, the entire group came to attention as the officer in front shouted out, 'Attention! Admiral on the deck.'

Kyra smiled, realizing that they were honoring the admirals who commanded the fleet that was currently protecting this system, and thought that it was a very nice touch.

The officer saluted, and held the salute until Kyra finally returned it.

'Sir, we're glad to finally have you aboard, sir.'

Kyra looked confused. 'Me? You're the captain of this ship. Right?'

'Sir, yes, sir. Captain Ro Norvyl reporting, sir. May I present my senior staff, sir?'

Kyra nodded, still wondering what was going on. This was much more like some formal military ceremony than anything else that she'd ever seen. She wasn't acquainted with many of the formalities in the naval forces of other systems or civilizations, so she wasn't sure how to respond.

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Please, captain, introduce your senior staff.'

'This is Commander Telv Rimal, my first officer. The rest of my bridge crew is currently on the bridge at their stations, and I'll be happy to introduce them to you later, at your convenience. Wing Commander Riv Malk is in charge of our flight wing.'

Both officers smiled, nodded, and saluted when they were presented to Kyra. Once they were done, the captain held out a set of actual paper orders. 'Sir, I was instructed to give you this once you were aboard and had met the senior staff of this ship.'

Kyra took them, looking at her curiously. When Kyra opened them, her jaw dropped. 'I don't understand.'

Kahmmhi looked at the paper and smiled. 'By order of the Bajoran Council, Colonel Kyra Nerys of the Bajoran Defense Forces is hereby promoted to the rank of admiral and given complete command of the Bajoran Navy. Admiral Nerys has shown by her prior conduct in military operations that she is a fit commander of combat troops, by her service aboard DS9 that she is capable of handling diplomatic and interstellar incidents and dealing with other cultures and politicians, and by her close interactions with the Clan and those who have been given Clan technology that she can learn and understand their systems better than any other officer that Bajor currently has available for such duties.'

'Welcome aboard your flagship, sir. I will await further orders and stand by to give you a tour of the ship or take you to your quarters at your convenience.'

Kyra stared at her, still dazed and half in shock. 'Ro. Captain Norvyl. I...'

'Either is acceptable, sir. I hope to become very closely acquainted with you and prove that I am worthy of this posting, sir.'

Korg clapped Kyra on the shoulder, almost sending her flying with the force of his blow. She heard him laughing loudly. 'Congratulations, Admiral Nerys. I'd offer the traditional cheer, but since the Clan built this ship from scratch, I don't have to worry about your blade failing you in combat or proving itself worthy.'

Admiral Yamato smiled and bowed politely. 'Congratulations, Admiral. I look forward to dealing with you in the future. Let me know if my squadron can be of assistance in any of your internal security operations. I know how hard it is to chase down smugglers when you don't have many ships, and we'll be glad to assist in any missions that you may have.'

'Thank you, Admiral.'

Karv'Tarek nodded politely. 'I would offer the same assistance, but our fleet here is very small, so we can't afford to divert too many resources from our primary mission of guarding the wormhole. Still, if there is a problem which we can help you with, do not hesitate to let us know. We will provide whatever assistance we can.'

'Thank you, Admiral.' Kyra looked at Ro. 'Captain, I'm not certain about the amenities that are currently available on board this ship, since I wasn't expecting anything like this to happen. Where could we sit and talk for a bit without interrupting normal operations?'

'Sir, other than the duty shift, the entire crew is celebrating right now. We do have a small conference room nearby where you could sit and chat with your friends and celebrate your promotion.'

'If your duties permit, captain, I would appreciate it if you could join us as well so that we could all get to know each other better.'

Ro smiled. 'It would be my pleasure, admiral. I must admit that I'm awed by the presence of so many senior officers, and like most Bajorans, I never expected to even get a chance to meet the Tahr Kahhni of the Clan.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'Relax, captain. As I'm sure that Kyra can tell you, I'm just another person who got stuck dealing with more responsibility than I wanted to accept at the time.'

'If you say so, Tahr Kahhni.'

Ro led them to the nearby room, and they all got comfortable and began to celebrate the emergence of Bajor's new navy. It was small right now, but the three ships that they were going to have would form the basis of a fleet that was more powerful than many other fleets that were much larger and had many more ships. And with things standing as they currently did, the Alliance could use every ship that they could get that was willing to aid them in their endeavor to defend this part of the galaxy from all external threats.

As they were sitting and relaxing, Kahmmhi smiled and leaned closer to Korg. 'So, I've been meaning to ask you something. I know that you and the Romulans were both getting rid of your birds of prey because they're so small and lightly armed, and that you've been using some of the larger ships for other duties once more of the newly constructed fleet becomes available.'

'Yes. We have limited manpower right now, so we've been putting the smaller ships that we don't decommission into mothballs, I believe you call it.'

'Yes. Mothballs. Seems like a waste, but you only have the ability to man so many ships...'

Korg looked at her, knowing that she had something in mind. 'I believe that you might have a suggestion that you think could be beneficial to us?'

'Well, I was thinking. You and the Romulans have all of these warbirds and battlecruisers that you can't use, and compared to your new fleet, they're simply light vessels that lack real stealth and don't have any of the upgrades to lasers, don't have gravitics, or anything like that in them.'

Karv'Tarek leaned forward, clearly interested in hearing what she had to say now that she was talking about the ships that weren't in service any longer. 'You have a plan to put them to some use that would benefit our systems or the Alliance in general?'

'I might. You are training new personnel as rapidly as possible and expanding your forces, but you need lots of combat troops and flight crews for your new small craft. And the Federation is also currently stretched for enough manpower to crew the larger ships that are being constructed.'

Yamato nodded. 'Yes. We have enough volunteers for the less technical jobs, but not all of them are either strong enough or aggressive enough to pass the basic training for ground troops or flight crews for the small craft. We're currently keeping up with construction on that front, but we're having problems getting enough people who are qualified for fleet duty through all of the training that is required, so we're kind of stretched for personnel overall.'

'I believe that I may have a suggestion that your respective governments may wish to consider, since it would give them the possibility of gaining some goodwill with a foreign power and could even lead to the acceptance of another partner in your current alliance.'

Kyra leaned forward. 'OK. Now even I'm interested in what you're talking about. I know that you're not talking about Bajor because it would take a very long time for us to build even larger ships than the ones that you're currently building for us, and we simply couldn't afford to even build and man many more ships like this one for a very long time.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'No, you can't. But there is someone else who not only could properly man the ships that I'm talking about, but giving them at least some of the ships, or even trading with them so that they get the ships at reasonable exchange rates, would increase their security and capabilities, and therefore provide even more defense along a section of your borders that is currently poorly guarded at best.'

'You are referring to the Cardassians.'

Everyone turned to stare at Yamato, then stared even more incredulously at Kahmmhi when she nodded her head and said, 'Of course.'

'Are you insane? We just fought a war with the Cardassians.'

'No. You fought a war against a single Cardassian military faction that was oppressing everyone who currently lives in the Cardassian Empire. They joined with the Dominion in a bid for power, and the Dominion's assistance was the only thing that allowed them to win their civil war and threaten you. The Cardassians who are now in power not only don't want to come here and start a war, but helping them recover from their civil war and secure their borders will gain favor with them and show them that you don't hold them responsible for what was done by those who had subjugated them. Interacting with them on a friendly basis could lead to more favorable feelings between your cultures, and it would make them feel like they were accepted as at least a friendly or neutral power along your borders.'

'But if we give them fleets of ships that large and powerful...'

Kyra looked at Ro and shook her head. 'She's right. The ships that she's talking about have cloaking, and are the equivalent of an old Galaxy class starship. They haven't been modified or upgraded at all, and don't have any new weapons or propulsion systems. Our small craft could take them out from stealth if they had to, and the Cardassians know it. They didn't want to go to war with the Federation before, and they'd be even less likely to want to risk open warfare with the Alliance. But even though those ships aren't a real threat to this system any more, they are more than sufficient to allow them to defend themselves against the Breen or any other systems that want to expand in their direction. Their empire and its borders would be secure, and we'd be their friends.'

The other admirals nodded, realizing that the goodwill gesture wouldn't really threaten their security, but it would provide a lot of security for the recently devastated Cardassians. They had suffered a lot of damages to their fleet during the civil war and the attack on DS9 that had followed. And they had lost a lot of personnel during the fighting and the subsequent purges. Giving them ships that powerful would allow them to use the limited personnel that they had left to provide security for the entire Cardassian Empire, and would let them maintain the integrity of their borders from outside influences. And if whatever was expanding their way couldn't get through the Cardassian Empire...

'We'll forward your suggestion to our civilian leaders, along with our own recommendations. Personally, I think that it will help to stabilize the entire region of this quadrant, and will go a long way toward achieving the goals that you outlined. Thank you for the suggestion, Kahmmhi.'

'I merely made a suggestion. What you choose to do with it is up to you. You're the ones who have to live here.'

Ro looked at her. 'What about you? If you can't make it back to your Clan through the wormhole in the Delta quadrant, won't you have to live here as well?'

Kahmmhi shook her head and smiled. 'Not likely. The Clans don't like staying in one system for very long, and certainly not on a rock. If we can't get home, we'll see what we can do to convince some of the more aggressive species in the Delta quadrant to consider other methods of expansion rather than conquering everyone around them by force and then subjugating them. Of course, if we run into the Borg again, we'll get to play and have fun at their expense. I'm sure that the troops will be happy to know that even in this galaxy there are at least some enemies that we get to kill on sight.'

Everyone nodded, and resumed drinking. Korg started talking about war stories, and they spent the next several hours talking about all of the most exciting things that they had done in combat. Ro listened attentively, having had very little combat experience herself simply because she was a young recruit when the war against the Cardassians had ended, and most of the combat at that time had been in places where she hadn't been stationed. Her current assignment had come about because she had been a pilot and had lots of experience in space, and had grown up listening to her parents talking about how they had run cargo and done other things of that nature before the Cardassian occupation of Bajor.

After several hours, they finally got something to eat and talked more quietly, enjoying the time to relax and just be themselves with others who knew the stresses and duties that they normally had to deal with. After dinner was finished, they all went back to the landing bay and boarded Kahmmhi's shuttle, leaving Kyra there with the captain of her flagship.

As they watched the ship on the screen in the HAT, Krohn sighed. 'That's not a bad little ship to start out your fleet with. Hell, if we'd had a few of those at Pehnt Drohvi, Kohl-garh would have REALLY owned their asses. The enemy wouldn't have known what had hit them, and they'd probably still be running today.'

Korg looked at Krohn curiously. 'I thought that your fleet was fairly strong at Pehnt Drohvi, and you defeated the enemy so badly that it was a devastating defeat. Surely a ship that was that small compared to your ships now wouldn't make that much difference.'

'While that ship is only three kliks long and two kliks in diameter, it is much larger and more heavily armored than the best ships that we had at Pehnt Drohvi. And while it lacks railguns, only forty to sixty of our heavy cruisers at Pehnt Drohvi had railguns, and none of them had armor that was comparable to that. Their lasers couldn't fire two million kliks, while those of the enemy battleships could fire four million kliks. Our largest carriers were two and a half kliks long and one and a half kliks in diameter, and carried two hundred unarmed shuttles and one hundred heavy large fighters. They were all definitely small craft with no weapons to speak of that could damage anything larger than a scout ship with no shielding. Our best railguns, which were all on the heavy fire cruisers, could only fire a railgun round at zero point zero zero seven five C. With the extra length that ship has, it could get a fair percentage of that with your current technology.'

'Yes, but the ship will only hold about fifty shuttles.'

'If we were making it, we'd make it hold more shuttles. Their shuttles are the size of a HAT, so they're twice the size of our actual strike assault shuttles. They have stealth, AM mines, spinal lasers on their shuttles, and enough space to even add some of the shuttles that you're making that are smaller to serve as fighters to support their other small craft. They can make a formidable little fleet out of what they have, especially if they're willing to build more ships and bring their flight wings up to full strength. They simply need to modify how they allocate their space and intend to use it and they'd have much more room for a larger flight wing.'

Korg nodded, realizing that what Krohn was talking about the Bajorans doing could be done on an even larger scale by every member of the Alliance if they were willing to devote the time, resources, and manpower to do it. He smiled. 'We will do our best to provide a good example for the Bajorans to follow. They are a tough and resilient people, and they are willing to make whatever sacrifices are required to retain or even regain their freedom.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'I have a feeling that once Admiral Kyra Nerys is finally forced to retire, the Bajorans will have more than enough of an example to live up to, Korg.'

Korg nodded. 'She is definitely a worthy adversary, and an even better ally to have at your back. I look forward to fighting alongside her once again in defense of our respective systems.'

Yamato smiled. The members of the Alliance all trusted and respected Kyra Nerys, and they would do what they could to make sure that her tenure as commander of the Bajoran fleet helped the Bajorans grow into the position that they were starting to fill as they emerged as an independent force in the Alpha quadrant.

'I was surprised by the admiral's response to your suggestion that we help arm the Cardassians. Her time in the Bajoran resistance fighting the Cardassians would seem to indicate that she held them directly responsible for the suffering that she and the rest of her people were forced to endure during the occupation of their system.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'She's had time to learn and grow, and she has become friends with Garak during her time on DS9. While she was already on friendly terms with him before we arrived, just working with him while they were determining what to do with the Cardassian prisoners showed her how they were very much alike, and how they simply wanted to do what was best for their people. They were both merely serving their governments in their position as soldiers, so they had more in common than either of them would have believed possible at first.'

'Will her endorsement of the plan undermine the confidence that her government has in her?'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'I highly doubt it. I was the one who suggested the plan, and I suggested it to the Klingons and the Romulans simply because they had the ships that would be donated or sold to the Cardassians if their governments approved, and the Federation wasn't directly involved in the exchange, either. While the Bajorans may have some hard feelings against the Federation, at least in some cases, they see the Romulans and Klingons as benefactors who helped defend their system against the Dominion and keep the Jem'Haddar from invading their planet and making the entire Cardassian occupation of their system seem like a friendly visit by comparison.'

'And it doesn't hurt that they almost idolize the Clan, not only for their part in defeating the Dominion, but also for their humanitarian relief efforts in building the detention centers and the current construction on their planet to improve their overall standard of living. Not to even mention the gift of the fleet that comprises their entire navy and the small craft that will provide protection to their system and allow them to enjoy a standard of living such as their planet has never seen in their recorded history.'

Kahmmhi smiled at Karv'Tarek. 'Good will is a coin that has limited value, but if you spend it in the best interests of those who trust you while it does have value, it can provide a huge return on your initial investment.'

'And making the Cardassians the allies of the Bajorans will go a long way toward pacifying this entire region of the quadrant, especially now that the Breen are no longer a significant military threat?'

Krohn chuckled. 'We weren't the ones who decided that the Breen were too dangerous to be given back their fleet, and we didn't use their ships as raw materials for armoring our fleet.'

'That is true. But the Breen are so antisocial and xenophobic that it makes very little difference if you are their ally or enemy, since they have a habit of turning on everyone as soon as it is convenient or they think that it is in their own best interests.'

Kahmmhi chuckled. 'Ah, intrigue. And that is why I don't like politics, politicians, or political dealings. Too much drama, and nobody comes right out and says what they mean.'

Brynhe laughed softly. 'They don't like or trust the Breen, Tahr Kahhni. They're backstabbers, and they act like the Wei-lu.'

Krohn chuckled. 'I don't know if that's an insult to the Breen or the Wei-lu.'

Max came up to them. 'Landing in ten, Kahm.'

'Thanks, Max.'

Everyone took their seats and prepared for the landing, just in case. After the hatch opened, they all thanked Kahmmhi and bade her farewell as they boarded their own shuttles and headed back to their recently reworked flagships. They had things to do and people to talk to if they were going to get Kahmmhi's plan approved by their governments. If it was approved, the long term effects could be beneficial to both the Cardassians and the Alliance, and would eventually improve relations between the Cardassians and the Bajorans as well. That would go a very long way toward unifying this entire sector and making it safer for all of them.

Korg and Karv'Tarek looked at the star map in front of them and smiled in satisfaction.

'It's taken long enough to actually map things out. Do we actually know anything about the strength of the forces in these systems, or whether they're part of some larger alliance or empire?'

'Not exactly. Some of them that looked too busy or were risky were bypassed, just as we agreed. Now that we have even better ships and stealth instead of just our cloaking, we're planning on sending out more ships to finish the explorations in those regions once the ships are ready to carry out that type of mission. The question is, do we send out warships or battle frigates for those probing missions?'

Karv'Tarek smiled. 'We both know the answer to that question. We're going to have to keep all of our battle frigates near our own systems and continue building more of them as quickly as we can. Though we may want to devote our resources to building more warships and battleships, rather than the middle sized ships.'

Korg nodded. 'That is true. We need more of the larger ships. Perhaps we should suggest using scouts for our probes and deep space exploration near our empires?'

'You obviously have something in mind to suggest that, since we both have many times more warships available than we have scouts. Even the ships that have been completed without the better upgrades outnumber the scouts that are ready for service right now.'

'Yes, I do. If we upgrade our scouts to the same levels as we had planned to before Kahmmhi arrived with Voyager, they will be sufficient for their role in scouting without being detected.'

'Yes. And what do we do with the warships?'

'Put them ahead of the majority of the battle frigates and upgrade them with stealth, gravitic engines, and all of the best armor and armaments that we can put into them, along with warp engines.'

Karv'Tarek smiled. 'You intend to suggest that we begin exploring hyper on our own and develop our own maps so that we know how to reach other Alliance systems as quickly as possible.'

Korg nodded. 'And so that we know where other systems are, and whether they are potential enemies or potential allies. Even if we only travel through their systems in order to cut time off of our transit to another system, we need to know who is there, what tech they have, and what kind of a potential threat they could pose.'

'I'll send the suggestion to the Senate and see what they think of this suggestion. It will probably pass, since it does provide so much to benefit us in the long run with very little risk. Not to mention requiring very little in the way of commitment.'

'I'll inform the High Council and see what they think we should do. What of the Federation?'

Karv'Tarek shrugged. 'For now, let them deal with their own problems. They already know about most of the nearby threats to their borders, and we lie along two of them. The Andoreans lie along another border, and now that they are members of the Federation, they serve as the early warning system for threats from that direction. At least they'll have some idea of any impending threats from that region of the Gamma quadrant. Once their own shipyards are operating at full production and they've overcome their problems with training and personnel, they will be capable of catching up with us with their larger population base and larger fleet. And we'll have already started filling in our own hyper maps by then, so they'll have even more incentive to begin doing more exploration of their own. After all, this IS peaceful exploration, even if we are actively looking for potential hostile civilizations. Finding them before they find us does allow them to study the new species and try to come up with a way to avoid hostilities.'

Korg smiled broadly. 'And if they can't do that, knowing about them that far in advance gives us time to study their technology and capabilities and do whatever it takes to be capable of dealing with them by force if they get aggressive.'

'A strong show of force could actually prevent many battles, you know.'

Korg shrugged. 'If they're not really capable of defeating us, then they aren't a worthy adversary and they're not worth fighting. If they insist upon fighting, we will defeat them, even if there is very little honor or glory in doing so. But if they don't, then we still keep our empires safe and we allow our troops to live to fight against a truly worthy adversary in the future.'

Karv'Tarek smiled. 'You've mellowed with age, especially for a Klingon.'

Korg shook his head. 'The Klingons have discovered that there are much more dangerous species in this galaxy than we are, and that we can't possibly defeat them. However, we have learned from them, and now we're beginning to follow their philosophy. Individual honor and glory are great, and are to be respected, but the first and most important thing is that we fight for the honor, glory, and above all, the protection of the Klingon Empire and our civilians. So long as they survive, our race will continue and we have the chance to defeat anything that we face.' He smiled. 'Adapt and survive, stagnate and die.'

Karv'Tarek recognized the saying that was almost universally used by the Clan warriors that he had met. The Clan adapted, learned, innovated, created, and survived. Their enemy did not, and they died as a result of their inability or unwillingness to change and grow. 'Ah. Yes. The Clan has managed to teach us all much in the short time that we've had to interact with them.'

Kahmmhi was kept busy with her normal daily activities and overseeing the construction projects, and her days tended to blend into each other so that she lost track of time. The first set of five cities on Bajor had been completed, and the second set was well under way. She welcomed the opportunity to do something other than the normal training and paperwork, and had been eagerly looking forward to the next ceremony that was planned for the day of rest.

When Kyra stepped aboard her ship, Kahmmhi was waiting to greet her at the landing bay.

'Welcome aboard, admiral.' Kahmmhi greeted her and they began talking as she led Kyra from the landing bay.

Kyra smiled and shook her head. 'I'm still not used to being called that. It just seems so strange. Our planet has never had an admiral before.'

'And they couldn't have a better one to set the standard, either.'

'I'll take your word for it.' Kyra looked pleased with the compliment, but she was still embarrassed and at a bit of a loss for words in those situations. Kahmmhi just thought that her humility suited her, and showed everyone around her that she was capable, yet still knew her limitations.

'Think about it this way. Would you want someone commanding the fleet who wasn't willing to do whatever it took to make sure that your system started building a fleet that was capable of actually defending this system? Even though they're worried about defending the wormhole now, once the Alliance realizes that hyper actually negates many of the reasons for defending the wormhole, it will have less significance. True, they will still probably have at least some forces here to mount a primary defense simply because species that DON'T have access to hyper can still use the wormhole, but with the ability to move other forces to this system much more rapidly than they could using warp, they will eventually find more practical uses for at least some of their fleet resources.'

Kyra nodded. 'Species who don't have hyper could use the wormhole to shorten their travel time to this quadrant. And while that could provide a lot of opportunities for trade, it will also keep those who lack hyper capabilities focused on controlling this system so that they can control that trade.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'And, in the end, you are your own first and last line of defense for this system, regardless of what the Alliance assures you.'

'Right.' Kyra looked thoughtful, then smiled cheerfully. 'So, what is the big secret that you have in store? All that I know is that you were wanting me to visit this weekend.'

As they entered a large room, Kyra stopped in her tracks as she saw many of the people that she'd worked with for so many years aboard DS9 waiting there, as well as many others that she recognized from the Alliance fleet. There were also a number of Bajorans in uniform.

'We didn't get to give you a really big party when you were made admiral and given your flagship, but we've now completed your other two ships, as well as the second set of battleships for the Alliance members, so we thought that we'd have a celebration to signify the actual completion of that part of the construction. You now officially have your entire fleet, admiral.'

Sisko came forward, saluted, and then congratulated her. 'Congratulations on the completion of your first fleet, admiral. I know that you will use them to defend and help all of Bajor grow into the position that they're destined to fulfill in this quadrant.'

Several Bajorans stepped forward, but those in uniform waited as Remal Sintar congratulated her.

'I won't take up much of your time right now, admiral, but I did want to give you my congratulations. You'll need about a month or so to get your newest ship fully crewed, tested out, and broken in, so take the time and do it right. When you finish, contact me and we'll go over some things that the governing council thinks that you need to know in order to do your job properly.'

'Does this have anything to do with the fleet that the Cardassians are going to be getting?'

Sintar looked surprised. 'You know about that already?'

'I do have regular contact with my Alliance counterparts inside this system, sir, and we do discuss things that will have an impact on the military and the safety of this system.'

He nodded, looking relieved. 'Ah. That's perfectly fine, admiral. I was worried that we'd had a leak in our own intelligence and information network. We haven't exactly made that news available to the general public yet.'

'Is this going to cause problems, sir?'

'No. Nothing for you to be concerned about, admiral. I simply wanted to go over things with you to let you know how our government views this, and what our official and unofficial position is on this matter. We have no intention of contesting this course of action, since we've been assured that it will actually increase our security and it poses very little threat to the safety of our system.'

Kyra looked relieved. 'I'm glad to hear that, sir. While I was surprised when I first heard of the idea, it does make a lot of sense militarily, and will actually be very beneficial for both our system and the Cardassian Empire in the long term.'

'I'm very relieved to hear that you share that opinion, admiral. We had no plans to interfere with your command, but we were concerned that your own stance might create some friction with the Alliance if you didn't support the plan. Obeying orders is one thing, but actually supporting them and doing everything that you can to make sure that something either works, or at least has a fair chance of success, is another.'

Kyra nodded, smiling as he moved to one side and began talking to Kahmmhi. She didn't have time to think about his comments, or their significance, as she was swarmed with other Bajoran officers who wanted to wish her well, followed by the officers of DS9 and various high ranking officers of the Alliance fleet.

The celebration lasted a very long time, and Kyra got a chance to talk to and catch up with some of her friends as they relaxed and enjoyed themselves in a very informal setting. By the time that she had to return to her flagship, she was exhausted, but had enjoyed the party and actually felt very refreshed and energized by the break from the constant demands on her time and attention.

Kahmmhi walked her back to the landing bay and her shuttle, and they talked quietly as they went.

'Not a bad party at all. Thanks. I really needed that.'

'You need to institute a day of rest for the members of your own fleet, you know. And enforce it so that everyone gets at least some break from their normal routine. Especially your senior officers, and yourself.'

Kyra smiled, trying not to look embarrassed. 'I know, but it always seems like there's never enough time to do everything and get all of the things that are absolutely necessary done. We're trying to not only set up our entire fleet from scratch, but we're still working out how to do things so that we can perform all of the duties that we're supposed to in order to protect our system.'

'And that will never change, no matter how long your fleet lasts or how long you train them. There is always something happening. Delegate authority to your subordinates. If you're too wiped out or exhausted to do your job, the entire fleet suffers. And it will only get worse as you try to increase your flight wings and start to build more ships to increase the size of your fleet.'

'Right. We can't do everything, but we do what we can with what we have.'

Krohn chuckled. 'The Clan has a saying that keeps even young Tahr Kahhni, who have all of the energy and enthusiasm of youth without any of the experience and training to help them figure things out, from wearing themselves out and trying to do everything on their own.'

Kyra smiled as she saw Kahmmhi blush and look embarrassed. It was almost impossible to see because of her complexion and skin color, but Kyra knew her well enough to know the response. 'And what is that, Krohn.'

'There is only one Kohl-garh.'

Kyra nodded, knowing that nobody was even going to waste their breath explaining that saying to her. Nobody did as much as Kohl-garh, and everyone in the Clans admitted that even he couldn't do everything by himself, no matter how hard he tried. He took time out from his neverending duties to spend with his family and make sure that they knew him, and that they knew that he cared for them. Even Kahmmhi, his granddaughter, had grown up knowing that her grandfather, the busiest man in ANY Clan, who was responsible for running a fleet that had BILLIONS of people, THOUSANDS of ships, and BILLIONS of warriors, took time out from his busy schedule to spend time with her because she was important.

'I'll remember that, Krohn. And no, I don't think that I'm Kohl-garh by ANY stretch of the imagination.'

Krohn shook his head. 'Nobody else is, and nobody expects anyone else to be. They just expect you to do your duties to the best of your abilities. Even Kohl-garh needs rest, and takes a break now and then. The only days of rest that he EVER misses are because he is in combat and can't take the day off. He says that it makes sure that he doesn't make mistakes because of fatigue. Mistakes are costly, especially in combat.'

Kyra nodded. She was well aware of exactly how costly mistakes could be when you were in combat.

When they reached her shuttle, she smiled and hugged Kahmmhi. 'Thanks for the party. I needed it. And thank you for the advice, Krohn.'

'No problem, admiral. You're this systems best shot at achieving their goals and improving their standard of living as much as possible. You're not afraid to bite the bullet and do whatever it takes when you're backed into a corner and all of your options are bad.'

Brynhe chuckled. 'And she's not too bad at evading those positions in the first place, either. She's already a fairly good tactician, and once she improves at strategy and learns to combine the two more fully, she will leave one hell of a legacy for this system.'

Kyra blushed, shaking her head. 'You guys have to be kidding. I'm nowhere near that good. But I do promise that I'm going to do my best to keep trying to improve for as long as I'm alive and capable of serving my system and the Bajoran people.'

As they watched her shuttle lift off, Krohn smiled. Kahmmhi saw it and nodded. 'Yeah. That's exactly what grandpa says to people when they talk about his abilities and how much better than everyone else he is.'

Krohn nodded. 'She's no Kohl-garh, but she'll do.'

Kahmmhi smiled as Garak entered the meeting room with Sisko. He looked very surprised when he saw that there were representatives of the Alliance in the room, as well as the Clan. He looked even more surprised when he saw that Admiral Nerys was in the room with them. She saw his smile, and knew him well enough to know that he was now nervous and wary, not knowing what to expect.

'I don't understand what's going on. I've finished representing the Cardassians in their dealings with the Alliance, and all that I've been doing lately is running my business and sending reports to the Cardassians as our previous agreements dictated so that they know what the Alliance is doing to protect the sector and what they are expected to be doing to fulfill our treaty obligations with you.'

'Relax, Garak. We're actually here to make an offer to your government. If they accept the offer, you'll probably be stuck dealing with us for a very long time as your government's official representative in this system.'

Garak's smile changed to one of amusement. 'Somehow, I believe that the Tahr Kahhni has conspired to make sure that my life never becomes boring.'

'Why, Garak, I would never do anything to disrupt the life of my favorite tailor.'

That comment brought laughter and smiles from almost everyone in the room, especially because of the tone of voice that Kahmmhi had used. Nobody had believed that she was the least bit serious when she made that statement.

Yamato smiled. 'While the Federation is an equal partner in the Alliance, we are here merely for formality and to observe the proceedings. Korg, I believe, is the person who will present their offer to you.'

Garak looked at Korg, curious as to what the Klingons would be wanting to propose to the Cardassians. They were not known for either their generosity or their trust, especially for those who had been their enemies in the recent past.

'As you surmised, Kahmmhi did originally propose something to both the Klingons and the Romulans, and after sending her suggestions to our respective governments, they agreed wholeheartedly to support her plan.' He looked at Garak intently, almost appearing intimidating, but Garak knew that was simply the Klingon way of showing that they were really serious about something that they were about to say. 'She was very convincing with her arguments, and even the Vulcans had to admit that her logic was flawless.'

Kahmmhi looked flustered. 'Blame it on my upbringing and the Clan's natural drive to recycle everything and put it to the best use possible.'

'I don't understand. What exactly are we talking about recycling and putting to the best use possible?'

'Parts of our old fleet. With the introduction of the new technology that was available at the end of the Dominion war, we were able to begin upgrading our fleet and increasing the size of our ships dramatically. With the new technology and modifications that are now available to us, we are going to be able to improve even the new ships that have already been upgraded, as well as making at least some improvements to our current ships that are remaining in service for the time being. However, in doing so, we're using more of our personnel to man the newer ships, and that's requiring us to decommission some of the ships that we would otherwise continue using for many years to come, even if it would be as auxiliary forces or support ships.'

'OK. You're decommissioning some of your smaller and older ships. What does that have to do with us?'

'At the end of the Dominion War, the Cardassian forces were forcibly reduced in size by a considerable degree. Part of that was due to the losses that had been incurred during your civil war, part of it was because of your losses here at DS9 during the war, and part of it was because we insisted on decreasing the size of your fleet while you reestablished order within the Cardassian Empire and regained control over your own systems.'

Garak nodded. 'That was only to be expected. Even my own government thought that you were being very lenient in the demands that you made at the end of the Dominion war, and that we were being stretched to fully man the entire fleet that remained once we had eliminated all of those personnel who were either active supporters of the Dominion and the Obsidian Order, or whose current loyalties were questionable.'

'Yes. But now your empire is having some problems with maintaining order within your borders simply because your fleet isn't seen by the citizens of Cardassia as being strong enough to insure their safety and to enforce their laws on all of the colonies that comprise your empire. Such dissidence could lead to another civil war, and that could potentially lead to some destabilization in this sector.'

Garak conceded that point, realizing that they were definitely paying attention to the larger picture in all of their current analyses. That was something that hadn't been as clearly demonstrated in their past dealings with the Cardassians.

Yamato stood. 'Are you and your superiors aware of the external threats that have been discovered by long range probes? Threats that, while they're not an immediate problem, could easily become serious problems for all of us in the next fifty to one hundred years? Possibly even less than that, if their current technological improvements continue at the rate that they have been.'

'Yes. Your governments have given us some details of what they have discovered, as well as some details about what the Clan has told them about the results of their own reconnaissance, but nothing definite. Is that important?'

Korg nodded. 'It could be. In addition to the Kazon, the Borg, the remnants of the Dominion, and other threats that could potentially head our way from the Delta quadrant, there are additional threats that could be heading our way from the Gamma quadrant. In fact, many of them are currently in the process of expanding their already considerable empires, and they show no signs of stopping their current goals for expansion.'

'Perhaps, if we knew more details, we'd understand why you seem to be so concerned with civilizations that are currently so far away from us. From the limited information that you have given us so far, it would seem that none of them could possibly pose a threat to our own systems for at least decades, possibly even centuries or more in some cases.'

Kahmmhi smiled as she stood up and looked at her comp. 'Without going into too many details, Garak, perhaps you could ask your government to consider the following facts. There are seven aggressive empires in the Gamma quadrant that my own Clan discovered during LIMITED scouting during our first visit here. Of the seven, all of them are about the technological equivalent of the Federation or the other Alliance members, either at the beginning of the Dominion War or at the end of it. While the advances in technology that we're currently providing to them will give them a slight technological advantage, there is still one other problem that they will have to overcome. That is why they are currently working at their best speed to bring all of their ships up to the best specifications that they can make and increase the size of their fleets.'

'I don't understand. If the Alliance is going to have superior technology to the other civilizations by the time that they reach this region, what problem poses so much of a threat to them that they are worried about doing everything that they can to upgrade their fleets even more than their previous plans required?'

'It's a matter of relative size, population, and resources. The Knarb currently have at least fifteen thousand ships in their fleets. The Javorkis have at least two hundred thousand ships, some of them fifty to sixty times larger than the battleships that are currently in this system, and those ships carry large numbers of small craft. The Zingvir have two hundred thousand ships, and some of them are also carriers with lots of small craft on board. The M'lk'Zrrk have at least seventy thousand ships. The Nrvwaak have at least twenty five thousand ships, many of them larger than the captured battleships in this system. The Zuk-greb have at least one hundred and fifty thousand ships, and they are comparable to the ships in the Dominion fleet that were captured. The Vrok have more than eight hundred thousand ships, many of them up to twenty times larger than a battleship. Their ships are fast, deadly, heavily armored, and comparable in tech to the ships that the Alliance had before the most recent series of upgrades were begun.'

Garak didn't even attempt to hide his horror and shock at what Kahmmhi had just said. That was more than one and a half million ships, and some of the empires that she was talking about were capable of fielding fleets that made even the huge Dominion fleet look small and insignificant in comparison. It didn't even matter how many ships they had that were twenty or more times the size of one of the new battleships that the Alliance had been modifying. That was simply too many ships for their fleets to handle, even if they were vastly inferior in their overall technology.

Korg smiled. 'I see that you understand the threat. Even if we keep developing our technology and building the size of our fleets as rapidly as possible, we are already starting at a severe disadvantage in the overall scheme of things. Now we realize exactly what type of war the Clans have been fighting against the Consortium. We are where they were many millennia ago, and we can only hope that by the time that we actually encounter those empires we are capable of either establishing peaceful relations with them or holding our own against them.'

Garak nodded. 'I understand things much better now. Are you wanting us to begin building our own fleets up and trying to make sure that we can stand with you against any external threats that we encounter?'

Korg laughed. 'Yes, and no. We do wish to see if your government is willing to begin expanding your forces and trying to make your ships larger, stronger, and better capable of standing up to combat against ships that are much larger and stronger than your own ships currently are.'

'OK, but I don't see how we're going to be able to contribute very much in the overall scheme of things. Our ships are definitely not capable of taking out ships that are larger and stronger than a Galaxy class ship with our current weapons systems, especially if we're the ones who are outnumbered.'

'That is why we are wanting to help you improve your technology, as well as your fleet.'

'I don't understand.' Garak looked as confused as he sounded.

'We are currently able to offer your empire fifty Klingon battlecruisers and fifty Romulan warbirds. You will have to improve their armor and upgrade their weapons systems as best you can, but they will all be fully functional and they all have the best cloaking technology that we were able to make before the Clan's recent return to this system.'

Garak was impressed, but confused. This would make the Cardassian Empire stronger than they had ever been, and would represent a huge leap in their military capabilities. 'I thought that you were worried about our military aspirations.'

'Now that you've had time to weed out any remnants of the Obsidian Order and their supporters, and to establish a more stable society, we know that you're not going to start trying to expand your empire in this direction. There would be no point to it. Even the fleet that we're giving to you would be incapable of standing up to the ships in this system, and we're not even sure that they could take out the newly formed Bajoran Navy with their current technological advantages. Your empire knows that there is nothing in this system that they haven't already stripped for their own use during their previous occupation, and that the only thing on the other side of the wormhole is the Dominion and other equally violent cultures.'

Garak nodded, realizing that everything that they were saying was true. The new Bajoran ships were HUGE compared to any of the ships that were being given to the Cardassians, and they were equal in power and tech to the very best that the Alliance had. And as for the Delta quadrant, nobody on Cardassia wanted anything to do with anyone from the Delta quadrant right now.

'The other reason is that the Gamma quadrant, according to the best information that we currently have available to us, is much more densely populated than the Alpha or Delta quadrants are. We're still not certain about how densely populated the Beta quadrant is, or what level of technology the civilizations there possess. We only know what we currently do about the Gamma quadrant because of the Clan's explorations through hyperspace, and we have a lot of data about the various civilizations in the Delta quadrant because of Voyager's own time there. A lot of their data was developed from their travels through the systems there while they were still using warp, but some of it was also gathered from a couple of years traveling from system to system through hyperspace on their way back to the Alpha quadrant.'

Garak nodded. He'd heard about that, but hadn't reported anything of that nature to anyone on Cardassia. While it was widely known in this system that such things were possible, everyone knew that the Clan had that capability. What they didn't know was that the Bajorans and the Alliance now had that capability, and that they also had the capability of making ships with gravitic engines as well.

'I can relay your offer to my government, and I'm almost certain that they will be more than willing to accept your offer at any reasonable price. But...'

'All that we're asking in return is that they armor the ships themselves and sign a nonaggression pact with us.'

Garak swallowed, not knowing exactly how to respond to that. 'Um, well, er, in that case, I'm certain that they will be very glad to accept your generous offer.' He coughed politely, then looked embarrassed. 'Though I think that I should ask for some clarification on what you want the Cardassians to know about your current military and technological capabilities. I'm certain that I know much more, especially in terms of details, about your current capabilities and plans than anyone in the Cardassian Empire does.'

Yamato smiled. 'Yes, Garak, we are well aware of the amount of discretion you have been exercising regarding the rapid changes in our fleet's technology and capabilities. We're also aware that certain information can't be kept secret forever, or at least not in terms of our general capabilities.' Her eyes lit with amusement. 'But there's a difference between knowing that we have developed gravitic engines and the capability of traveling through hyperspace and knowing the technical details that would eventually allow you to develop that capability yourself.'

Garak nodded, understanding exactly what she was saying.

'We hope to eventually form much better relations with the Cardassians, and look forward to the day when they might become full members of our Alliance. But we all know that THAT day is still some time in the future. Even if we wanted to offer you full membership in the Alliance, your culture wouldn't survive such a sudden, radical change intact with all of the major changes in technology and your relations with other systems hitting you all at once. Just as Kahmmhi was right that we weren't ready for some of the technology that the Clan is giving us now when she left here after the end of the war against the Dominion. We probably still wouldn't be ready for it, but we have to really start changing and adapting if we want to have a real chance to survive when we finally encounter the civilizations that she found in the Gamma quadrant. It's a calculated risk, but the results of doing nothing are at least as dangerous as making us take the first steps on this path instead.'

'I will contact the Cardassian government and relay your offer. How would you like to effect the transfer of the ships if they decide to accept your offer?'

'They can come to this system and man the ships with minimal crews so that they can get them back to the Cardassian Empire and begin refitting them with better armor and putting them into service. We can bring five ships at at time, and so can the Romulans.'

'Very well. I will inform them. And thank you, once again, for this magnanimous gesture of goodwill and friendship. I will make sure that my government understands exactly how important this could be for our own survival in the near future.'

Garak got up and left the room with Sisko, and the others looked at each other. Karv'Tarek sighed. 'The olive branch has been extended. Now all that we can do is wait and hope that it is accepted in the manner in which it was intended.'

Kyra nodded. 'We can trust Garak. As for the government of Cardassia, they're all politicians, so who knows what they're thinking, planning, or trying to do?'

There was laughter around the room as the admirals got up to return to their flagships. They stopped their departure when Kahmmhi invited them all to have lunch with her at Quark's. None of them had any pressing business at the moment, so they all accepted and decided to take a break for at least a few hours.

By the time the Cardassians were able to get to the system to take possession of the first set of ships, the Clan had already finished building the first set of battle frigates and were beginning to work on upgrading the second set. The shipyards in each of the Alliance home systems were busy working on doing similar modifications to all of the other ships in their fleets as rapidly as they could, but were starting with the ships that hadn't been partially upgraded already.

Garak smiled as he introduced the leader of the delegation that had come to DS9 from Cardassia. 'Please, allow me to present Gul Morken, Gul Darnak, and Gul Terkan. They are the ones who will be in charge of taking the new ships back to Cardassia so that we can begin putting them into service.'

Sisko and the others smiled, nodded, and bowed politely to their visitors.

'We are very pleased to learn that your government has chosen to accept these ships, and we hope that they will provide your empire with increased security. And we hope that this will just be the first step toward even better relations between our respective governments and cultures.'

Gul Morken nodded, smiling as he looked around nervously. 'We are very pleased to accept your assistance, and believe me, the military does appreciate your gesture even more than our government does. Now that we are aware of the potential magnitude of outside threats that might try to expand into our territory in the future, we are even more determined to do whatever it takes to provide for the security of our people. We are very aware of how much of a boost this is, not only for our fleet's military capabilities, but also for our technology and other scientific capabilities overall.'

Garak smiled. 'There is no need to be so nervous, Gul Morken.'

'Forgive me, sir, but we are very well aware of the potential that the Clan has, and how they managed to destroy so much of the Dominion fleet and kill even the Founders themselves.'

'Yes, I understand that. So, what is the problem?'

'We don't know how many Clan troops are here that we can't see, sir.'

Kahmmhi laughed, the sound lilting and melodic. 'The only Clan members currently in this room are myself and my four Shadows, Gul Morken. Though I believe that there are currently several hundred more Clan members on board DS9, since some of them are on shore leave and there is one, possibly two platoons of Raiders training in the largest holodeck on the station.'

The Cardassians looked relieved. 'Sorry, but we are still afraid of Clan troops. Nothing stands against them in combat. At least with Klingons you know that you have a small chance of survival, and that they CAN be killed.'

'I assure you, Clan troops CAN be killed.'

Krohn laughed. 'It's just very difficult for anyone in this quadrant to do so because of their level of technology and your physical limitations.'

Kahmmhi said nothing, but smiled as Brynhe whispered some very sharp comments in Llyriana to Krohn for making that statement. She was speaking in Llyriana, and was being quiet enough that nobody else would be able to hear it. All of the others in the room weren't quite laughing, not even nervous laughter, in response to Krohn's statement. Even the Alliance members were clearly not comfortable at being reminded just how different Clan members were from everyone else, no matter how human they seemed to be on the surface.

Gul Darnak shook his head. 'I had heard that Clan humor was very dark. Now I know that I don't understand it.'

Sisko shook his head. 'Nobody else seems to understand it very well, either, Gul Darnak. However, if you spend enough time around them, you do get used to it. Eventually.'

Korg nodded. 'It will take you about two or three weeks to get the ships back to Cardassia, and about the same amount of time to return for the next shipment. We will have twenty ships here every two months until you have taken possession of all of the ships that we're giving you at this time.'

Karv'Tarek smiled. 'If we can maintain our current pace on refitting the ships that we have, we will be able to provide you with even more ships in a few years, though I'm not sure how many there will be or how rapidly we will be able to keep building new ships. Right now, we're just doing minimal changes on the newly acquired scouts because it's just not worth the time and effort to try to upgrade them beyond the first generation of newly acquired technology. They're too small, and they couldn't provide enough additional firepower to warrant the expenditure of resources that would be required to upgrade them further.'

'It will take us some time to armor and crew all of these ships, and to train enough personnel to man that many ships that large.' Gul Morken smiled. 'It seems that all of us in the Alpha quadrant have discovered that we don't have enough of our population enlisted in our armed forces. And while we could have argued that we didn't have the resources to support that many personnel before, it seems that we will be required to do so if we want to have a chance to survive in the long run.'

Korg nodded and smiled. 'If you will come with us, we'll show you to your new ships. May they serve you as well in the defense of the freedom of the Alpha quadrant as they have served us in the past. And may your empire become as all of those who have threatened the Klingon Empire in the past. A distant memory of those that we have vanquished and subjugated, or a strong ally who will fight beside us in glorious combat in the interests of our common survival.'

The Cardassians nodded, realizing that the Klingon had just wished them well in a manner that had definitely been a double edged sword. If the Cardassians used the ships that they were being given for any other purpose than those that they were intended, the Alliance would probably make sure that they didn't get a chance to ever repeat their mistakes again. And, as Korg had just reminded them, all of the Klingon Empire's previous enemies were either dead, defeated, or currently allied with them in the interests of their common survival. They all believed that survival was a very good thing.

The Cardassians were getting used to coming into the Bajoran system to get ships by the end of eight months, though they all knew that this would be their last visit for this purpose for quite some time to come. They had already taken possession of eighty ships, and twenty seven of them were now fully manned and operational in Cardassian space. Twenty three more would be fully manned before long, but they were still working on training the newest recruits so that they could begin their military service.

'I see that they are already working on the first set of warships, and that they're almost done with them.'

Worf nodded, having greeted them and accompanied them to their meeting as part of his job as head of security for DS9. 'Yes. The Clan is almost done with the construction of all of the ships and small craft. They still have some work to do on the construction projects on Bajor itself, but they are confident that they will finish them within the allotted time.'

Gul Derkur nodded. 'The construction of the new cities is amazing. I've never seen Bajor look so green before. Even before our occupation, the planet was never that green.'

'The solar collectors that the Clan uses are green. They generate most of the power that is required to maintain normal functions for each individual dwelling. Of course, they also have substantial redundancies built into all of their dwellings that they construct, just as they do for all of the ships that they build. There are windmills that can also generate power, and the synthesizers can also utilize antimatter generated power. There is a grid for any household to draw off of if they aren't producing enough power to meet their immediate needs. Excess power from all of the dwellings flows into that grid and is stored whenever there is excess power available. While the Clan builds each dwelling to be totally self sufficient, they do plan for every foreseeable contingency that they can.'

'Ah. The standard of living on Bajor has risen considerably, then.'

'Yes. The Bajorans are very pleased to have a stable society once more, and the means to maintain that society and their current standard of living for a very long time to come. So far, their navy has been able to harvest more materials than they've required, and they are beginning to stockpile some resources for immediate use during times of emergency or disaster.'

'We're trying to do the same thing, but right now it's more limited in scale. With the decreased drain on our own resources that the gift of these ships has meant, we are now capable of rebuilding our society's own damaged infrastructure while still drawing off more of our population to replace the troops that were lost during the war.'

Gul Morken nodded. 'We are even beginning to resume patrols in the areas that we normally did before the start of the civil war. But we've added cloaking devices to some of our smaller ships and are using them to do that type of scouting so that we don't drain our main fleet's forces and send them off piecemeal. If they are needed, they will respond as squadrons, with the size of the fleet that responds depending on the size and nature of the threat to our empire.'

Worf nodded. From what he had heard of their plans and guidelines, their use of their available forces was fairly efficient. Of course, he didn't know all of the details, so his conclusion was still contingent upon obtaining more data before he would be satisfied that there weren't going to be any problems with the Cardassians holding up their end of the agreements that they had made with the Alliance.

The door opened, and they smiled as they saw Korg and the other admirals waiting for them.

'Greetings. So, your final trip to collect the last of the initial fleet. How are things going in the empire?'

'Very well at the moment. We were just telling Worf that we've added cloaking devices to some of our own ships and are using them as scouts to gather information beyond the borders of our space.'

Korg and Karv'Tarek looked interested, but not shocked or angry. 'That sounds like a very good use of available resources. Which class of ships are you using for that duty?'

'We tried it with the smaller ships, but they just didn't have enough power to maintain the cloaking and do anything to get away from potential threats without being discovered. So we're using the larger ships that we had before the war. They have the power to maintain cloaking, and they're more heavily armed and armored. While it takes much more of our available resources to send out one of them compared to the other ships, we determined that it was better to send more than what we needed and get the information back if they ran into any hostile forces or encountered some unknown phenomenon that would destroy a smaller ship.'

'Very good thinking. You might get less data in the same amount of time, but you're more likely to get the data that you want and need than you would be if you sent out smaller, more lightly armed scout ships.'

Karv'Tarek nodded, agreeing with Korg. 'How are your power levels holding, and are you having problems with the shields fluctuating because of your ship designs?'

'Some. The council thinks that it's within acceptable ranges, but we're still working on trying to boost the power and overcome the fluctuation problems.'

'Have you tried using more emitters and adjusting the harmonics on the frequencies?'

'No. I think that they're trying to work out something to do that, but they're still working on the simulations to determine the best locations for placement of the emitters.'

Sisko cleared his throat, getting their attention. 'Have you considered just changing your armor, making it thicker in certain regions, and then placing the emitters so that the conformation is closer to that of the Romulan or Klingon designs?'

Gul Derkur shook his head. 'I don't think that anyone has tried that. In fact, that would simply add armor to the ship and require less in terms of modifications than most of the other things that are currently being studied. Thank you for the suggestion. I will make sure to inform my superiors so that they can study the possibility.' He smiled. 'And for the troops who are being sent out on those missions, allow me to add their thanks for your concern with our problem.'

Sisko shook his head. 'No thanks are necessary. We've all been out in the vast depths of space without much in the way of support or assistance at one time or another, and we all know how it feels to know that we're very vulnerable to attack by hostile forces. There certainly aren't any career politicians in this room.'

Everyone laughed at that comment, knowing that for many of those present, the time was coming when they would no longer be able to keep from being put behind a desk and used for their vast knowledge and experience in ways that didn't allow them to get into the thick of battle. Though there was some chance that the changes that the Clan had caused within all of their societies, especially the technological changes and the requirements for much larger numbers of trained military personnel with combat experience, might push that day back much further than any of them had ever imagined possible.

'Are you in a hurry, or do you have time for a decent meal at Quark's?'

'We'd be happy to eat before we left. The food at Quark's is much better than whatever comes out of the replicators. No offense.'

Sisko and the others laughed. 'Oh, believe me, we fully agree with you, and would never take offense at any comparison between replicators and Clan synthesizers. Replicators lose every time.'

They went through the station, not surprised to find Kahmmhi there with her Shadows. They weren't eating, so they had obviously been waiting for them.

'Ah, welcome back. I remember Gul Morken, Gul Darnak, and Gul Terkan, but I'm afraid that I don't know the other officer.'

'Gul Derkur, at your service.' He smiled, bowed, and came to attention.

'Please, no formalities. This is lunchtime, and formalities always interfere with your ability to enjoy the food.'

Sisko and the others sat down, but there was still one empty place at the table. Before anyone could ask, Garak finally came into the room, looked around, smiled when he saw Kahmmhi, and then came over to the table.

'Sorry that I'm late, but a customer just couldn't make up her mind and decide which outfit she wanted.'

'No problem. Do you know all of the Cardassian officers, Garak?'

Garak looked around the table. 'I know OF them, but I've only met Morken and Derkur.'

They nodded politely to Garak. 'Sir, good to see you again.'

'I'm no longer in the Cardassian military, as you should both well know.'

'You're still listed as the official ambassador and military liaison for this system, sir. You officially represent the Cardassian Empire in all matters dealing with the Alliance, sir.' Derkur sighed. 'And many of us owe you our lives. It was not fun being held in the detention camps on Bajor, not knowing what was going to happen to us.'

Garak smiled, appearing very self conscious. 'You owe your lives to the fact that you never willingly served the Dominion, and that you only followed the orders given to you by the Obsidian Order because they were in command of the military. You took an oath to serve and protect Cardassia when you joined the military, and you didn't break that oath.'

'You still have our gratitude for speaking up in our defense, sir. My family could have been executed.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Let's not talk too much of darker times, gentlemen. Let's enjoy the food, and enjoy the fact that we can sit and eat together in peace now.'

The Cardassians nodded. Kahmmhi signaled, and several waitresses showed up at the table almost immediately. After they took the orders of everyone in the group, making sure exactly how they wanted their meal to be prepared, they left to get their orders.

'Wow. I've never seen service that good at the best restaurants in the Federation.' Yamato looked at Kahmmhi and whispered, 'How do you get such good service?'

'Well, we kind of cheat. They know that Quark really likes our business, so they do what they can to make sure that he's happy with their service whenever we're in here to eat.'

Krohn chuckled. 'And since we don't pay for our meals because Quark won't take our money, we generally leave a tip that would more than cover the meal if we were paying for it. They get to keep the entire tip, and they know it.'

Yamato nodded. 'Yeah, that would do it, alright.'

Sisko laughed. 'I don't make enough to do that. Of course, I don't eat here that often any more, other than to meet with some of my staff and friends and socialize. I always did like cooking for myself.'

Worf nodded. 'Jadzia and Kyra meet here to eat pie and gossip. And Dr. Bashir and Chief O'Brien eat here after their time on the holodecks doing their "adventures". I'm still not sure exactly what that means, but the doctor often has to treat the chief for injuries that they sustained on the holodeck.'

Korg laughed. 'Somehow, I don't see the two of them sparring with the greatest Klingon warriors in history.'

Worf shook his head. 'No. Definitely not. But speaking of that, are you up for a rematch any time soon?'

Korg took out his padd and looked at it. 'I can be here for an hour or two on Wednesday. Is that good enough?'

Worf nodded. 'Bring a third person, and we'll try to see how high we can push the strength and speed on the holodeck without sustaining serious injuries.'

Sisko rolled his eyes. 'You two are getting as bad as Bashir and the chief with your attempts to duplicate Krohn's duel on the holodeck. Who went to the infirmary the last time?'

Korg laughed. 'That would be the third officer of one of the battle frigates that's stationed here as part of my fleet. He said that he could handle a batleth better than that, and I've seen him fight before. He just couldn't handle the speed and power when they were combined.'

Worf nodded. 'He fought well, but it wasn't good enough.'

Korg nodded. 'Too bad the doctor had to heal him up to make sure that the wound wasn't life threatening. If he'd at least had a scar, it would have given him something to impress others with. Surviving that program is no small feat.'

Karv'Tarek shook his head. 'My own troops are not quite so into pain. They simply enjoy watching the replays of the duel between the Tahr Kahhni and a certain Romulan captain who will remain forever nameless. Once he lost all of his honor by demanding that duel, he became a non-person in the eyes of the Romulan Empire.'

'And are they studying the fight and the tactics used, or just using it to stimulate their libidos?'

Karv'Tarek smiled at Brynhe. 'While I'm sure that some of them spend much more time studying Kahmmhi's body in more intimate detail than is necessary for analysis of the fight, most of them are much more interested in the actual combat. I'm certain that some of them entertain some fantasies about her, since she does appear to be very much like a Vulcan or Romulan female physiologically, but I'm just as certain that none of them have any intentions of ever trying to take things beyond that point. They have no intentions of dying a gruesome, painful death just for the chance to live out the fantasy. Though we do now require all recruits who enter military training to study that vid and learn exactly how easy it is to die when you underestimate your opponent or misread their intentions.'

Yamato nodded. 'Yes. A very valuable training tool, but one which we are reluctant to use. Watching something like that affects many of our personnel very negatively.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'I know how they feel, and I really do empathize with you and your situation, admiral. For the Clan, I'm not all that aggressive, and watching some of the things that my grandfather, and even my own brother, have done in combat sometimes makes me feel very bad for quite a while afterwards. Though I am starting to understand what they were saying when they told me that sometimes you just had to do things that you normally wouldn't want to do, but it's the best way to protect your Clan. And since I've become the leader of this scout claw, I'm learning a lot about the sacrifices that have to be made in order to fulfill your duties. I'm not going to ask others to do something that I could do myself just so I don't have to live with the memories. That wouldn't be fair to them, and it would make me a very bad leader.'

'Sometimes there are limits. Lines that you simply can't cross.'

Krohn smiled. 'And that is why she has us. And why her brother serves as the leader of her personal platoon of troops. He is the very best Raider in Clan Silver Dragon, and was hand picked and trained by Kohl-garh himself while Kahmmhi was still a child.'

'According to what we've heard, Kohl-garh hasn't been with your Clan for more than two hundred years. So how can you be sure that Max is still the very best Raider in their entire Clan?'

'We continue his training. We evaluate his performance. And when his unit trains, they are always pitted against the very best competition that is available while still being outnumbered significantly. Learning to survive training exercises like that guarantee that you are much better than you need to be in order to defeat the best troops that the entire Consortium has to offer.'

Brynhe smiled. 'His armor shows his prowess and skill at doing his job.'

All of the Cardassians and Alliance members looked at her curiously. 'Can you explain that so we know what you mean?'

'The green stripes on his right arm.'

'That is some type of badge or sign of rank or skill? We're not really sure what most of the "decorations" that are worked into your armor even mean, or what significance they have.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'Nothing on molecular armor is a decoration. It takes a lot of effort and energy to work any kind of design or pattern into molecular armor. The silks on your arm designate your household. If there are certain types of silks on the right arm, that designates special units such as Shadows or Household Bodyguards, or even the Three Hundred. The green stripes that they are talking about are worked into the armor as they are earned, and that is a very energy intensive and time consuming process.'

Now everyone was listening without making a sound. The Clan never wasted anything, and to rework perfectly good molecular armor and waste vast amounts of energy simply to put some type of marking into the armor meant that it had great significance to them. It's importance was worth more to them than the vast amounts of energy that making it required.

Krohn smiled. 'Each stripe consists of a number of one inch long bands. It takes more than twenty bands to make one stripe on a man of Max's size.'

'And what do the bands represent?'

'Each band represents the confirmed kill of a Chyrl-paa assassin. Either on board one of our own ships or Home Ships, or during a duel. We don't count kills unless they're made face to face. Though there are some Clan warriors who actually refuse to accept the markings unless they kill a Chyrl-paa on board our Home Ship or in a duel to protect the person that they are guarding.'

Brynhe nodded. 'Lehr and Kohrrhi, Kohl-garh's Shadows, refuse to wear any stripes other than for those that they killed on board a Clan Home ship. They can't even tell you how many Chyrl-paa assassins they've killed in combat.'

'I take it that Chyrl-paa are very difficult to kill.'

'They are almost as good at hiding and infiltration as the shape-shifters are, and they are one of the strongest and most well trained species in the entire Consortium. They are the ones who maintain order by killing all those who oppose the will of the Consortium's ruling councils and military high commands. Only the best, brightest, and strongest of them are trained as assassins, and only the best of them ever achieve the rank of master assassin.'

'So how many stripes do Kohl-garh's Shadows have on their armor?'

'No one knows. After the right arm of their armor was turned completely greenish black by the stripes, they quit putting them on. The only part of that arm of their armor that isn't that strange green-black color is the small band with their ribbons as Kohl-garh's personal Shadows on it.'

'And what about Kohl-garh?'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'His armor has no markings at all other than the black on black Phoenix on his chest. Nobody knows how many Chyrl-paa he has killed. I know that when I was young, there were two squads of Chyrl-paa on our ship, and they found me and were trying to catch me and kill me. They finally cornered me, and were about to kill me when my grandfather found them. There were six master assassins and six of their prodigies in that group, as well as six other highly trained assassins. This was their test to become master assassins.'

'What happened to them?' Karv'Tarek was curious and very interested.

Sisko cringed, already knowing the answer to that question, as well as how talking and thinking about it affected Kahmmhi. He saw her shudder, but otherwise, she showed no response. That both surprised and worried him, because it was much different from how she had behaved the last time that she was here.

'My grandfather killed them. His Shadows killed about two each. One with their gun, and the rest with their swords.'

'And what did your grandfather use?'

Kahmmhi's eyes were drained of all emotion as she looked at them. They weren't quite lifeless, but they didn't look like she normally did. They weren't full of life and energy.

'My grandfather found out that I wasn't in our household, and he was worried because he knew that I'd think that it was just another drill to test the preparedness of our security forces. He didn't even go back to his shuttle to get his armor. He had his personal weapons, but he didn't even use them. He let out a roar that scared me so badly that I peed myself in terror. The Chyrl-paa reacted to seeing one of their number get his head blown off by turning to see what the sound was. When they saw my grandfather, their greatest enemy and the most wanted man in the entire Consortium coming at them without armor on, they forgot all about me and went after him.'

Kahmmhi shuddered. 'That was the last mistake that any of them would ever make. My grandfather usually caught some of them alive and then questioned them for information, but not that day. He literally tore them and their armor apart with his bare hands. I saw my grandfather, the loving and gentle man who held me and cuddled me, who protected me and made me feel safe, literally punch his bare fist through Consortium body armor until his hand came out of the back with a beating heart in it. I saw him throw armored assassins so hard that the impact against the bulkheads killed them inside their armor. He threw them at least thirty feet before they hit the wall. I saw him rip the arm off of an armored assassin, and it wasn't until I heard the screams and saw the blood spurting that I realized that he'd ripped his arm off at the shoulder at the same time. He knocked one assassin to the floor, then stomped down on his neck so hard that the armor was crushed and his head was literally popped off of his body, leaving him decapitated like we usually leave our enemies to make sure that they are definitely dead.'

'While he was doing all of that, he was calm, controlled, yet still clearly enraged. His eyes were cold, dead, and completely emotionless. They looked colder and deader than the darkest depths of space. And then, when they were all dead, he simply came over to where I was, picked me up, told me that it was OK and I was safe, and then took me home. He cleaned me up in the shower himself to make sure that I hadn't been injured by them. He was all kind, loving, attentive, and caring again, and his eyes were full of life and concern for me.'

Kahmmhi looked at them, slowly going around the table to make sure that they were all listening and paying very close attention. 'That was the day that I learned exactly what kinds of sacrifices a leader had to make in order to protect his Clan and those that he loved. And that was the very last day in my life that I've ever been alone, because I had my Shadows the very next day.'

Yamato looked pale and drawn. 'How old were you?'

'Twelve. I had to wait four years just to be old enough to enter Basic, and even then, my mother kept me from doing it for a few more years so that my Shadows could teach me more about how to use a sword properly and so that she could teach me some other things that weren't normally taught in Basic.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'I had always been spoiled by my grandfather, and I was even jealous of Max because so much of the time that grandpa was too busy to be with me, he was training Max and working with him and Fleur to make them the best warriors in our entire Clan. Now I knew what it took to get that kind of attention from him, and I no longer wanted to be just like Max. I was afraid that I wasn't good enough, and that I couldn't handle that type of combat. So I went into command track training so that I could eventually become part of the fleet, though my mother insisted that certain training be continued, no matter what. And she began training me so that I could help by handling negotiations and more diplomatic functions. Things that most Clans have little or no real use for.' She smiled. 'And I ended up here.'

'How big is her grandfather, anyway?'

Korg smiled nervously. 'Over two meters tall, and he is huge and very imposing.'

'And what does he weigh?'

Krohn shrugged. 'We're not sure. His muscles have gotten denser over the years, and we think that he's even put on some additional muscle mass over time as well because of all of the time that he spends training and in combat doing physical activity. Somewhere between two hundred and fifty and three hundred kilos without his armor. Possibly even more than that.'

The Cardassians realized that they were talking about something that was taller than a very tall Nosikan and thicker than a very large Klingon. And that he had to be many times stronger than either of them. His very tiny granddaughter was stronger than a large Klingon herself. No wonder his enemies feared him and his Clan. Even without their vastly superior technology, they would be a very large threat to anything that they considered an enemy.

Garak nodded as he saw their expressions. 'That is why we lost. Even without their technology, their culture makes the Klingons look like pacifists.'

Gul Derkur nodded. 'Unfortunately, we must all strive to become much more like them if we expect to be able to defend our people against the potential threats that we must eventually face.'

Garak looked confused. 'Why do you say "unfortunately"? I thought that you were one of the leaders who fully supported all of the growth in the military and our new relations with the Alliance and the Bajorans.'

Derkur smiled and nodded. 'Oh, I support those things wholeheartedly. But now that I know what we have to try to emulate, I realize that it won't be possible for any of us to become anywhere near that good. It is beyond the physical limitations of our species. And they are not just warriors, either. They think, plan, and devise new ways to kill their enemies. They created their technology, and they nurture the intelligent and encourage them to think in new ways and develop new things. I don't think that any of our cultures does enough of that.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Even among the Clans, nobody can do many of the things that my grandfather does. And yet, nobody expects anyone else to be capable of what he can do. All we expect is that each individual does his or her best, and gives everything their best effort.'

Krohn smiled. 'Nobody can kill as many enemy troops as Kohl-garh can during a battle. But each of the billions of troops who follow him into battle do their best, and the result is that the Clan wins, and billions of the enemy die violently at our hands.'

Nobody responded to that comment. But all of them were very grateful that they didn't live in the same universe that the Clan did. And they were even more grateful that they didn't have to fight the same enemies that the Clan did. That would make the potential threat of the Gamma quadrant's more militant empires seem like a very small threat indeed. The size, the power, the population, and the resources of the Clan's enemies was many orders of magnitude larger than that of all of the empires in the Gamma quadrant combined.

They finished eating, and the conversation gradually became much more normal and relaxed. After dessert, the Cardassians had to leave. They had ships to get to Cardassia, and after talking to Kahmmhi, they realized that they had a very long way to go before they would be capable of standing up to their enemies and threats to their civilization the same way that the Clans did.

Of course, the recent help that the Alliance had given them would improve their technological capabilities significantly, in addition to giving them a much more powerful fleet to defend their sector of space from external threats. They would be a buffer between the Alliance and other cultures that were beyond their sector, but it wasn't as if they were simply being used by the Alliance, either. Not only would the Cardassians have had to defend their own territory from those threats anyway, but they had been given ships that would allow them to protect their systems much better than they could have before, and they weren't under Alliance command or anything else. The only condition was that they sign a nonaggression pact with the Alliance. After the recent war, and the upgrades that had been made to the Alliance fleet, as well as the advances that had been made in their technology, the leaders of the Cardassian Empire were more than willing to accede to that stipulation, even if they hadn't been given anything in return. With the even more recent increases in technology that the Alliance was receiving, as well as the additional upgrades that were being made to their fleet, anyone who opposed a nonaggression pact between the Cardassian Empire and the Alliance would have been hunted down and killed by the Cardassian population as a threat to the empire. Receiving a fleet of ships that were more advanced, larger, and more powerful than anything that the Cardassian Empire had ever built, even if they did need to be given some additional armor, was more than anyone had expected. The officers in the Cardassian military were definitely grateful.

Virginia and Kahmmhi were going over the progress that had been made, and planning out what they still needed to do before they left. For this meeting, they were meeting in person on the Rolling Thunder so that they didn't have to worry about any interruptions. It also meant that they could say anything that they wanted without having to worry about being overheard by anyone or offending anyone's sensibilities.

'OK. We've finally finished all of the shipbuilding projects. We helped the Alliance modify some of the shuttles that the Federation had been using, then built some more from scratch using their blueprints and materials that they can manufacture on their own. They'll send the first group of shuttles back to StarFleet, along with a few of the better ones that were custom built.'

'They're that much better?'

'They still don't have inertial compensators, but the inertial dampening fields on the ones that we built are stronger and are able to utilize more of their power to maintaining the internal forces. They don't have to worry about structural failure at the speeds that they're capable of reaching with their ships.'

'Cool. So what's their max speed, and how are the performance characteristics?'

'Well, we built them some HATs similar to the ones that we gave the Bajorans. About two hundred for each fleet, and another fifty for each of them to send to their home systems to use as models for further construction. The large shuttles were selected over the smaller ones, and they're using them as fighters. They have twin spinal lasers fore and aft, with about half a million kliks range. They can do five light seconds per hour under gravitics. The smaller shuttles con only do four light seconds per hour because they don't have the power to offset the problems with inertial shifts. Smaller systems just aren't as strong as the ones that we put into the larger ships.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Yeah, we warned them that something like that was going to happen.'

'Since we were making fighters for the Alliance, we went ahead and made seventy of the larger ones for the Bajorans so that they'd have some for their ships and a wing on their planet. They were able to make small landing bays for them on their carriers, so they can carry almost as many fighters as they have HATs on board.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'If they improve their armor, and more importantly their compensators, they'll eventually be able to build strike assault shuttles of their own.'

Virginia laughed. 'I don't think that any of them are quite that aggressive, and I'm not sure that they can overcome their limitations on materials and related technology well enough to do that in the foreseeable future, Kahm. But they do have the information, so they may eventually become desperate enough to try to do so.'

'And what about the Bajorans?'

'Their fleet is broken in now, and they're patrolling their system with one carrier and sending the other one out with their salvage carrier to guard it while they're exploring through hyper for nearby systems that might have some useful materials for them to harvest.'

'Good. Have we heard anything from the Cardassians?'

'They're busy armoring all of the ships that were given to them by the Romulans and Klingons. They already have the first thirty or so in service, and are reestablishing their control over the fringe systems that were cut off amidst all of the chaos of the civil war.'

'Cool. They'll get everything stabilized soon enough. Is there anything else that we need to go over before we look at the progress on the planetary building projects?'

'The Romulans and Klingons are using some of their smaller ships to do scouting beyond the borders of their own empires.'

'Yeah, Korg mentioned that to me while we were working out the other day. And they're going to start working on mapping out hyper as soon as they have the resources to divert some of their upgrades to the warships that they captured. They're going to keep all of the battle frigates and larger ships closer to home, and use the older ships that haven't been upgraded other than adding improved cloaking to do the other scouting.'

Virginia nodded, thinking that they were being cautious and showing some intelligence. The scouts that they were sending out were supposed to gather information and avoid conflict, so if any of them were captured, those who got the ships wouldn't get any of their newest and best technology. 'That should work. Now, about the planet.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Yeah, I know. The Bajorans are being obstinate in certain cases, and the construction is going slower than it should be. I've already taken care of that problem, and it won't happen again.'

Virginia looked at her. 'Really? And how, exactly, did you solve that particular problem?'

'I contacted Remal Sintar and told him that the very next time any Bajoran refused to do what we needed them to do in order to begin construction of their new house, they would be immediately put on the banned list and the Clan would not be back to do the work later. The schedules are clearly marked, and they know exactly when their blocks are to be put under construction, so they should be capable of moving and getting the things that they want to keep out of their houses before we get there.'

'What did he say?'

'I don't know, and I don't care. I simply contacted him, gave him the message, and cut the transmission. Then I sent the orders to the construction battalions down on Bajor. They confirmed receiving the orders, and anything that doesn't get built by us is a problem that the Bajorans will need to solve on their own.'

Kahmmhi smiled grimly, and they both knew that the Bajorans would be struggling for years to complete anything that the Clan didn't construct for them within the cities, and that those who screwed up might be kept waiting a lot longer than they initially thought simply because the Bajorans had already agreed to complete the building projects for the smaller towns and outlying families themselves so that everyone on their planet had at least a minimal standard of living that included the technology that the Clan had made available to the entire population of the Bajoran system. Those in the cities had already been given their chance, and had decided for whatever reasons of their own not to accept it, so the Bajorans were going to put everyone outside of the cities as the first priority for their new construction projects, and those who had missed out on the first construction projects would simply have to wait until the government could get around to them or pay for the construction to be done by independent parties with access to the technology that would be required for the new type of construction.

'In that case, we'll be right on schedule. Another three or four years and we'll have all of the cities completed, and the majority of the Bajoran population will be living in much better housing than they've ever had.'

'So, how long does that give us to find the anomaly and try to make our way back home?'

'We should be there at least six months before the opening is stable and usable. If we put a transmitter in the wormhole on our end and send a scout through, they should be able to tell us if it's the right place before we take the whole fleet through. If it's clear, we all go, and then all we have to do is get on the network and contact the rest of our Clan to figure out where they are and how to reach them.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'If this works, it will be really great to be home. This place is really kind of interesting for a while, but...'

Virginia nodded. 'But we're all going to die of boredom here if we don't get out of here and find something that is actually a challenge to fight and kill. Yeah. I definitely hear you, Kahm. If we hadn't so been busy trying to help these guys get on their feet, the troops would have gone stir crazy long ago. Even with all of that activity, they can only do the training and building for so long before they get bored out of their gourd.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'Yeah. Grandpa used to say that all of the time, too.'

'Where the hell do you think I first heard it, kid? Lehr used to drive us nuts by saying things like that. If he wasn't Llyriana, I'd swear that he was one of the ancient ones who came from a rock. He uses more of their ancient, obscure sayings than anyone else that I know.'

'Lehr did come from a rock, but it was a Llyriana world. But I know what you mean. He watches the ancient vids and immerses himself in their culture constantly. He actually gets worked up and enjoys the old vids. Even the ancient horror flicks, slasher films, and war movies.'

'Really?'

'Grandpa showed me some old "slasher flicks" as he called them. Some type of horror movie that he had about some guy who haunted kids in their dreams and killed them in their sleep. Lehr actually made a kwyll glove with blades for fingers, saying that he was going to haunt the Graks and kill them in their sleep. He even used it in combat for a while, but only when he was in chameleon and they couldn't see anything but the finger blades. He was always laughing about how seeing some of their friends die like that affected Consortium troops.'

'Yeah, I can just imagine. Having been exposed to Lehr and his sense of humor, I'd rather not know more of the details. It's probably just messy and really gross.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Oh, yeah. Really, really gross. But Lehr always made it seem so funny when he talked about it that it never really bothered me to watch the vids.'

Krohn tapped Kahmmhi on the shoulder and whispered something into her ear. She sighed, then nodded. 'Sorry, Ginny, but duty calls.'

Virginia watched Kahmmhi leave, wondering when the girl was going to finally slow down and take some time for herself. If this upcoming attempt to get back to their Clan didn't work, she was going to have to make the girl take a break before she lost it completely. Even Kohl-garh took vacations. Come to think of it, she should make a point of making Kahmmhi take a break while they were still here. If anything went wrong with their transit back to the system that they had come here from, they could need her to be prepared to deal with anything that came up, and there might not be time for her to take a vacation for quite a while. It had certainly been that way when they had first arrived here.

Virginia made some notes on her comp, then got up and returned to her duties. There were still Alliance and Bajoran troops to train, as well as a number of pilots from the various fleets. Not only were they learning how to use the tactics that the Clan did, or at least as much of them as they could handle with their limited technology, but they also had to learn how to fly the new ships and deal with their unique handling characteristics. Tom Paris and some of the members of Voyager's crew were invaluable in that respect. She wondered what Kahmmhi had in mind for dealing with the problem of what to do with Voyager's crew long term, since they were still being treated as an independent command under Kahmmhi's protection. They'd been allowed to talk to their families, and some family members had even managed to come out to DS9 and visit during the past few years, but there were still a number of crew members who were remaining in this system, even though the Federation had taken Voyager back to Earth several years ago.

Virginia shrugged, knowing that she didn't have anything to worry about. Kahmmhi would handle it, just as she had handled everything else since their arrival in this system. She was becoming quite good at performing her job of leading this fleet. She was also becoming quite adept at handling diplomats and politicians, but Virginia wasn't about to make that particular observation anywhere near the presence of Kahmmhi or her Shadows.

Kyra looked around the bridge of her ship and smiled. All of her flight wing was now on board, and they had more pilots and small craft than had originally been planned for. Each of her carriers had twenty HATs and twenty fighters on board that were fully manned. They had the additional thirty HATs on board already, but it would take at least a few years to recruit and train the personnel to man them properly. The salvage carrier was fully crewed as well. It had ten HATs and ten fighters fully crewed, and the fighter crews could man and fly the additional ten HATs as well, giving them plenty of flexibility.

'What are the results of the last launch drills?'

'Well above the average, sir. They are meeting or exceeding all of their goals.'

'And their performance in the simulated combat?'

'Excellent, sir. We're scheduled to have another mock attack by the Romulans sometime later today. They will be acting as defensive forces this time.'

'Good. Let me know how the drill goes. I have to be on DS9 for some meetings with the Bajoran council's representatives to go over the amount of resources they're going to need us to collect to meet the scheduled building goals down on the planet.'

'Yes, sir.' She cleared her throat nervously.

'What is it, Ro? You know that you can speak plainly.'

'About the numbers that we're reporting to the council, sir. We've collected a lot more resources than we're reporting to them.'

'That's right. They accepted this fleet from the Clan, and they agreed to operate the fleet according to normal Clan procedures so that we'd have the best chance of surviving and defeating any enemies that we faced. They give us a list of their needs, and we meet them and deliver them to the planet. But we also take care of our own needs, since we're to be primarily self sufficient, or at least as much as possible. Eventually, as the fleet becomes even larger and we have our own shipyards, we will be capable of operating totally independently of Bajor, just as the Clans operate completely on their own. What we gather over their requirements is saved for our own use. To make repairs, to eventually build more shuttles, more small craft, more ships, or anything else that is required for the fleet. Once we have enough stored, we'll send them some of the surplus that we collect, as well as everything that they say that they require.'

'Yes, sir. Thank you for explaining that so clearly, sir. I knew that we had to keep some resources for our own use, but I wasn't aware that we were going to be operating so clearly on our own, with little or no help from the planet itself.'

Kyra sighed, seeing the disappointment in Ro's face. 'It's not that they're depriving us of support and resources, captain. Right now, we're in a better position to provide for them and help them out than they are to help us. Eventually, we'll need their help with additional manpower and construction, and that will also help them build their society and increase their standard of living. But if we do our jobs properly, there will come a time when the fleet doesn't actually require anything from Bajor in order to continue expanding and building our forces.'

'Won't that cause a problem with fleet personnel eventually losing any ties to Bajor, and making them less likely to defend the planet?'

'Not really. You see, while we may not need them right away, eventually, we will. We're not going to turn our backs on our own people, and eventually we're going to run into the enemy fleets from the Gamma quadrant. When that happens, we could end up having more combat damage than we can handle on our own. That is when the planet will become essential to helping us rebuild our forces, replenish our numbers faster than breeding on our own in space possibly could, and giving us a place for those who have been crippled or become too old to go into combat to retire to in relative safety.'

Ro nodded. 'So, we're technically going Clan without actually going Clan. Try to survive on our own and do what we can on our own so that we don't stop the growth and stress the resources that are available to the citizens of Bajor, but they will be there for us when we need them.'

Kyra nodded. 'Yeah. Unlike the Clan, we don't live forever. And we do have a planet to go back to. One that we definitely want to defend.' She sighed. 'And as long as nobody in this galaxy comes up with some of the more destructive weapons that the Clan has available for their own use, we won't have to worry about anyone just coming into the system and destroying either Bajor or our entire system with a single bomb.'

Ro nodded, watching the admiral walk off of the bridge and head for the landing bay and her shuttle. She had never been so glad that she had volunteered for an assignment in her life. She had no doubts in her mind at all that this was the one way that she could truly make a difference and help her entire family on Bajor have a life that was worth living.

'Captain, time to suit up for the combat drill.'

Ro nodded, thanked her exec, and began suiting up. 'Telv, are these things as uncomfortable for you guys as they are for us?'

Telv chuckled, knowing exactly what she was talking about. 'I helped develop and test some of the earlier models. These are much lighter and move much better than they did.'

'That's not what I mean, and you know it.'

'All of the females complained about how "invasive" the plumbing fixtures were, but when they saw how quickly and easily the Clan females were able to get in and out of their suits, and how little modesty they had about getting into their armor, most of the complaints ended. In the end, a bit of discomfort and lost modesty doesn't really compare in the scheme of things when the alternative is dying.'

Ro nodded, finished attaching her plumbing fixtures, and helped Telv close her armor and lock it into place on her. 'Prepare for the drill. We don't know exactly when it's going to happen, but we know that it's coming soon.'

Everyone on the bridge nodded, quickly finishing pulling on their own armor, and went back to work.

'Tehra, are you reading what I am?'

'Yeah, Mank. They screwed us again. They must have every operational small craft that the Romulan fleet has inside this system. Even with the fighters, we've got forty ships out here. This is going to get hairy.'

'Roger that. At least they're not Clan, so the odds aren't that bad.'

'Tell me about it. Form claws and do what we can with what we've got. Maintain unit cohesion, and don't go running off chasing runners or cripples, people.'

There were a number of acknowledgments, and then they waited for the enemy craft to close the distance and begin their first attack runs on the Bajoran fleet.

'Damn. Those Bajorans are aggressive little bastards. They fight like Klingons.'

Korg laughed heartily. 'No, Karv'Tarek, they fight like Clan. They are aggressive like Klingons, sneaky and devious like Romulans, and they fight with the determination of a Clan warrior. This is their system, and they don't have anyone else to fall back on, so if they lose, all of their people die, and they know it. So they fight like Clan.'

'You're right. We need to make our training emphasize that more and increase the difficulty of our own training if we want our pilots to match their performance.'

Admiral Yamato nodded. 'We have even further to go on that accord than either of you, but I fully intend to make sure that all of the troops under my command are at least as well trained as the standards that we agree to. The important point is that the two of you must stick together and maintain a hard line on the minimum standards so that my superiors can't try to place someone else in command of our own forces and slack off on the training.'

'Our superiors understand your position and your dilemma, admiral. Rest assured that they intend to enforce all of the agreements that we make regarding minimum proficiency and capabilities for our respective fleets.'

'Good. None of us wants to see the Federation go down, and I certainly don't want to risk the possibility that a few corrupt or short sighted individuals within the Federation could undermine the entire Alliance and put all of our people at risk.'

Korg nodded. 'Kahmmhi won't interfere with our internal problems unless she deems us to be a threat to humanity, and she certainly has no intention of forcing us to do things in a particular way unless that is directly linked to what we need to do to utilize the technology that she has given us in a safe manner.'

Karv'Tarek nodded. 'The Senate tried an experiment on their own to determine exactly how much of a threat some of the things that the Clan experts told us about really were. They built one of the best small craft that they could to the best structural standards that they could achieve, gave it all of the newest technology and upgrades, and tried to do a microjump inside a system.'

Korg and Yamato both looked interested, but Yamato looked apprehensive. Korg finally said, 'And what was the result of their experiment?'

'Well, it made the first microjump fine. It actually survived a jump of half of a light second, and the elapsed time in real time was so small that it was almost immeasurable. But when they checked all of the systems, found them to be perfect, and tried again, there was a smear of light as the ship disintegrated.'

'Compensator failure?'

'That's what we thought. We were actually hoping that it was something like compensator or inertial dampener failure because that would allow us to try small jumps with some of the larger ships that were stronger and had better inertial compensation. That would have allowed us to use some of the Clan's tactics for shoot and scoot in combat to evade enemy return fire. So we asked the Clan experts. They told us that the reason that they'd told us not to even attempt that specific type of travel was that we couldn't open a hyper portal stably with our technology. The hyper portal wasn't fully formed, and when the ship hit it, it disintegrated instantly and was spread across the system at its current real time velocity. They were actually surprised that our first attempt didn't end in the exact same manner, but careful studies of the data indicated that we got lucky and hit the field while it was in phase with the ship.'

The others nodded, realizing that it would take a lot of time and effort to develop the capabilities they would need to use hyperspace like the Clan did. Of course, as far as they knew, they were well ahead of every other species in the galaxy in that area of research, so they weren't as bad off as they could have been. What they did need to do was make their ships and their pilots better than anything that the enemy had, because they were definitely at a disadvantage as far as the size and power of the fleets that they had available to defend their systems. In fact, every system that they knew about in the Gamma quadrant that currently topped their list of potential threats had many more ships available, while they all had many less systems and species within their empires than the Federation did. And after meeting with the Clan, even the most pacifistic Federation politician knew all about the possibility of being overwhelmed by an enemy who had the resources to simply accept whatever losses were required and overwhelm their enemy by sheer numbers. That was a potential problem that the Alliance had to take very seriously if they expected to survive for very long.

Sisko looked at the message that he had just received, shaking his head in amazement.

'You look concerned, sir.'

'Not concerned, exactly, Worf, but there is some cause for serious consideration of the situation.'

'Situation, sir?'

'The Federation Council knows that the time is rapidly approaching for Kahmmhi to lead her Clan off to the Delta quadrant, so they're sending out a delegation again. They wish to have a formal ceremony to officially thank Kahmmhi and the Clan for everything that they have done for the Federation and the Alliance. And to wish them luck and a safe journey back to their Clan.'

Worf scowled. This would mean a lot more work to make sure that all of the security concerns were properly addressed, and there were always all kinds of headaches to deal with because the demands of some of the "dignitaries" were contradictory to many of the basic requirements for security.

'Yes, I understand the headaches, especially when we're dealing with something that's going to snowball in its scope and significance. Now that the Federation is coming here, the other members of the Alliance will also feel obligated to come. And then there are the Bajorans.'

'Not to mention the Cardassians. Now that they've signed a non-aggression pact with the Alliance and the Romulans and Klingons have given them a much more powerful fleet...'

Sisko nodded. 'This is going to be interesting.'

Worf looked at him with a sly smile. 'Why do I have the feeling that when you said that, you meant it exactly the way that Kahmmhi does when she says that?'

Sisko chuckled. 'Well, if I do, then perhaps the delegates and dignitaries will enjoy what may be their last chance to interact with the Clan?'

Worf growled lowly. 'That jest is beneath you, sir. If they are thinking like that, they could have half of the entire Federation Council out here to participate in this historic event that will represent the beginning of an entirely new era for the Federation and the Alliance.'

Sisko looked very thoughtful for a moment, then smiled. 'You know, if they really think that this is such an important historic event, they could actually bring the entire Federation Council out here, and possibly a good portion of the Klingon High Council and the Romulan Senate as well.'

He walked off chuckling evilly at the shocked and concerned expression on Worf's face, knowing that it would take a while before even Worf would be able to convince himself that Sisko was just being facetious, and that there was very little chance of something like that happening. Hell, if Sisko had actually thought that it was even a remote possibility, he would have never risked mentioning it out loud simply because he didn't want to risk giving anyone ANY ideas that they didn't already have. The last thing that he wanted to have was a station that was overcrowded with dignitaries, politicians, and reporters. That would be a serious nightmare, even for him.

Virginia scanned the messages that were being received. 'Laura, tell me that I'm seeing things. Not again.'

Laura shrugged. 'It's not like Sisko makes the rules, even on his own station. In the scheme of things, he's about as influential as a claw commander on a PUFF.'

Virginia nodded. It wasn't actually quite that bad. Sisko did actually have some influence and importance in the Federation, but he wasn't anywhere near the level of a career politician, diplomat, or even one of the admirals who oversaw operations of various divisions of StarFleet.

'Let Kahm know, and make sure to tell her that we have no idea whether or not Sisko warned the admirals in charge of any of the fleets inside the system.'

'Roger that, sir.'

Laura pointed to the comm tech and she immediately sent the message to Kahmmhi's quarters.

Kahmmhi stepped out of the shower, dried off, and then dressed in her silks for the day. She would be busy handling some things, so she didn't have time for a workout right now. Perhaps, if she was lucky, she'd be able to get in one after dinner.

'What's up for today, Brynhe?'

'Message from Sisko. The Federation is sending a delegation for a formal ceremony to thank us for all the help that we've given them before we leave for the Delta quadrant.'

Krohn laughed. 'Five bucks says that it's another freaking dog and pony show.'

Kahmmhi couldn't help giggling, knowing exactly how crude the connotations of that particular phrase were in old Basic. Lehr's comments had made that abundantly clear to her while she was still very young, but she had noticed that her grandfather never objected to his interpretation of exactly what Troy meant when he said that something was a dog and pony show.

Jehryl laughed, shaking his head. 'No bet from me. From what I've seen of these guys so far, their politicians and leaders could fubar a snafu to hell and back.'

Lyhssyha shook her head at the two of them. 'Such language. You should be ashamed of yourselves.'

'The girl heard worse than that from Lehr while she was still a child, and often gave him even more than an even exchange.'

Kahmmhi smiled and stuck her tongue out at them both. 'I was not a potty mouth around my mommy.'

'Only because she spanked your bare bottom even more often than Kohl-garh did if he found your behavior to be unacceptable.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. There really wasn't a snappy comeback for something that was obviously the truth. 'Well, they know about our customs now, so they probably won't be worried about the visible presence of some troops during the party. If they want to hold some more meetings and try to get even more concessions from us, they had better be a lot faster and much more straightforward than they've ever been with us in the past. We're not putting off our departure date. We know that the wormhole cycles every so many years, but they didn't bother documenting the phenomenon other than as a navigational hazard, so there is no way of knowing how long the cycling lasts. Our window could be much shorter than we want it to be, and we can't be sure that sending any exploratory teams through wouldn't totally destabilize it and leave us stranded here for another cycle.'

'What are we going to do if that happens?'

'Explore the freaking Delta quadrant or somewhere else and avoid this sector of space as much as possible.' Kahmmhi was totally serious in her response, and her Shadows all knew her well enough to recognize that fact. 'We've already done about as much as we can for these guys, and there may actually be someone else in the Delta quadrant who isn't a threat to humanity that we could help out as well.' She giggled. 'Besides, it might be fun to track down some more Founders or Borg and see if we can't get them to come out and play with us. The actual fighting might not be that much of a challenge, but getting them to fight, and finding them and digging them out of their hiding places in the first place, could pose enough of a challenge to keep us all from getting totally bored to death.'

Brynhe nodded. 'OK, now that we've got that settled, what are we intending to do to make sure that we don't have any problems with diplomats and dignitaries getting into a snit? By now the novelty and the danger factor have both worn off, so those who were too much of a chickenshit to come out here before are going to be willing to risk their precious hides out in the boonies of civilization in order to see if they can figure out some way to try doing their normal political wheeling and dealing.'

Kahmmhi chuckled. 'Unfortunately for them, it will be business as usual for the Clan.'

'Do you have any ideas about how we can best make that clear to them?'

Kahmmhi smiled and chuckled. 'I'm sure that Sisko won't mind at all if I bring my full security contingent with me to any functions that I attend on DS9. I was thinking that Max's platoon definitely needed a bit more time to get out and socialize, and he can use Raider Two and Raider Three to flesh out the visible presence of the Clan.'

Krohn burst out laughing, knowing that Sisko wouldn't be half as thrilled with that idea as Worf and the Klingons would. He wouldn't mind it at all, but the Klingons would definitely appreciate the entertainment value that doing something of that nature was certain to cause.

'Oh, come now, Krohn. It's not going to be THAT bad.'

'No, Tahr Kahhni, it won't be that bad. I was just thinking that even though Sisko would find it amusing, the Klingons would bust a gut laughing at the floor show. Though I think that Worf is going to have a stroke trying not to laugh at his superiors if any of them get the piss scared out of them.'

Kahmmhi nodded, looking very serious and not at all amused. 'OK, I see your point.' Her tone indicated that she was NOT amused, but she accepted his lack of decorum and manners, since there weren't any outsiders there to be offended. She turned her head slightly, winked at Brynhe, and smiled so that Krohn wouldn't see it.

'You do know, Tahr Kahhni, that we learned all about that particular little trick LONG before you were born. Some of Kohl-garh's wives are experts at that type of behavior.'

'Fine. Yes, it's funny, but I'm not going to laugh. I've got to practice my self control so that I don't slip up and screw the pooch while we're at a formal function. My grandfather might be able to get away with a lot of things simply because half of the known galaxy is afraid of him, but I'm not my grandfather.'

Krohn chuckled softly. 'Kahm, half of our galaxy and most of the neighboring four galaxies are afraid of your grandfather. The entire Consortium is terrified of the Death Wraiths, and Kohl-garh is the most terrifying Death Wraith in existence.'

Brynhe smiled. 'I'll just really be glad to get back to our own galaxy and rejoin the Clan so that we can get back into a real war. This place is boring as hell, and dealing with politicians and other crap is even worse.'

Lyhssyha smiled. 'Bryn, you know better than that. We're all feeling the stress of dealing with the alien cultures for so long, but it won't be that long before we're back to operating as we normally do.'

Jehryl snorted and nodded. 'Yeah. One way or another.'

Krohn sighed. 'Well, at least we've got a few weeks' warning of their arrival, so we can tell how much of a fiasco this is going to be by how much traffic increases at the station. At least Sisko has a good excuse to boot most of the undesirables and gawkers out of the system, since the station can only hold so many people.'

They all knew what that meant, and nobody wanted to discuss the possibilities. While they could figure out how many things operated in Federation culture, there were still a lot of things that were fuzzy at best to them simply because nobody in their Clan had any real frame of reference that would help them understand what the hell was going on. And knowing that, they also knew that the Federation didn't understand the Clan any better than the other members of the Alliance did. In fact, there were times when Kahmmhi thought that, other than some rare exceptions among the more militant and exceptional people in StarFleet, both the Romulans and the Klingons understood the Clan better than the Federation did.

Kahmmhi sighed, then began working her way through the things that required her attention. No matter how this turned out, she still had to get through this long day and another few weeks before she'd be forced to give this matter her almost undivided attention.

Captain Riker stood in the shuttle bay at attention as the shuttle landed. He smiled, then saluted formally as the familiar figure walked out of the shuttle and stepped onto the deck of the landing bay.

'Welcome to the Federation battleship Orion, admiral. It is a real pleasure to have you aboard.'

Picard saluted, then smiled. 'Please, Will, at ease. At least let us enjoy some informalities while we can.'

Riker nodded. 'What do you think of her, sir?'

'Much larger, faster, and better than even the Musashi.'

Riker nodded, continuing to talk as they walked toward his ready room. 'Yes, sir. There was no way to know that even the most advanced ships that we were building, such as the Musashi, were destined to be outdated and obsolete before they were even fully assembled and brought off of the assembly line.'

'They're not totally worthless, you know.'

Riker nodded. 'No, they're not. They are fine ships, and adding some of the new armor and lasers to them does make them much better. Not to mention the cloaking that they can handle. And the small ships that they carry do add to their offensive effectiveness. It does make them much better than the Galaxy class ships ever were, but they still can't really compare to the new ships that are finally starting to come out of the shipyards.'

Picard had to agree with Riker's assessment, though it did pain him at least somewhat to realize how quickly his beloved Enterprise, the flagship of the Federation fleet, had been relegated to becoming a relic of an age long past. They kept talking about trivial matters and catching up on their lives as they walked, finally reaching the ready room.

After they entered, Riker offered Picard some tea and they sat. 'Sir, what is this visit all about? I received orders to come here for a mission, but there was no explanation as to exactly what the mission was.'

Admiral Picard looked over at Captain Riker and smiled, looking almost sheepish. 'I wish that I could tell you that this won't be one of the worst assignments that you could have been given right now, but...'

Riker smiled knowingly. 'But you wouldn't want to lie to me or try to sugarcoat things.' He sighed. 'I really don't mind having you on board my ship, sir, but...'

'Exactly. Unfortunately, the delegates decided that the best thing to do was to take the best ship that we had available.'

'And there are very few of the new battleships available right now, with most of the ones that we already had under construction being refitted and upgraded. Still.'

'Will, they are working on rebuilding entire ships, you know. And they're finally making all of the construction deadlines within acceptable time limits. The only delays that they're experiencing are the ones that really are unavoidable.'

'Sir, we both know that they were dragging their feet for the longest time. Then, when Kahmmhi returned to DS9 and gave us access to even more and even better technology, they had to improve their performance on doing all of the construction, refits, and rebuilding in order to avoid violating the terms of the agreements that are the very foundation of our alliance with the Romulans and Klingons.'

Picard nodded. 'That may well be true. What troubles me is that there was still at least some resistance in the Federation Council itself until it was made perfectly clear to everyone that our only chance for survival if some of the empires in the Gamma quadrant begin expanding in our direction would be for us to stand together with the Alliance. And even that would require us to expand our fleet size and the number of larger ships in our fleet more immensely than anyone had believed possible.'

'Sir, if I may ask, why was my ship chosen for this mission?'

'Truthfully, because I was assigned to plan out this phase of the mission to make sure that we got there as quickly as possible and the traveling delegation was given all of the protection that they could possibly require.'

Riker shook his head in dismay. 'Sir, this ship could be large enough to carry the number of delegates, support staff, and other visitors that you have listed without any problem. Under normal circumstances. But with this many people on board who all think that they're entitled to special treatment...' Riker shook his head again. 'My crew just isn't going to be able to handle all of their requests and demands, sir. And I'm quite sure that while our personal quarters are very large and luxurious by StarFleet standards...'

Picard smile and nodded. 'Don't worry about that, Will. I have several people already designated to handle all of the problems of that nature that might arise, and all of the cabin assignments have already been made according to protocols that were worked out by some of the official leaders of the delegation. Everyone has been informed of this fact, and of the fact that if their accommodations are not acceptable, their alternative is to secure private transportation of their own at their own expense. Whatever the case, we will leave Earth orbit at the specified time and proceed to our destination, regardless of who is or isn't on board at that time. And the functions at our destination will begin as scheduled. Again, regardless of who is or isn't there on time.'

Riker smiled. 'I'm sure that there are going to be a few individuals who are going to try to be fashionably late, sir. Even if it's not just to show everyone else how important they really are.'

Picard smiled. 'Then they will be even more fashionably late arriving in the Bajoran system. We will be outside of transporter range within five minutes of leaving Earth orbit, not that we could actually beam anyone onto this ship even if we wanted to. And we will not be stopping or taking on any passengers or making any side trips for ANY reason. For security reasons, of course. Rear Admiral Thompson insisted on that security measure personally. In fact, for the duration of this mission, you are to disregard even priority one distress calls and forward them to the nearest available ship or starbase.'

Riker nodded, looking much more serious now that he knew what their mission would entail. Once they left Earth, nobody and nothing was to be allowed on or off of the ship until they reached Bajor and DS9.

'Do you have a final count of how many people there are going to be, sir?'

'Not quite, but we're closing things down and getting it organized. Several hundred members of the Federation Council itself, several thousand members of their families and staff, including a number of young children. Or so I have been informed. At least a hundred members of the press, counting their crews and support staff. A number of ranking members of StarFleet Command, a number of members of Federation Security, and a number of diplomats with various qualifications, including all of those who have dealt with Kahmmhi and the Clan in the past.'

'Our crew is much smaller than the one that was originally intended for this ship, so we have lots of space and lots of available quarters. We can easily accommodate twenty or thirty thousand people in addition to our entire current crew complement. But DS9 definitely can't handle that many people for very long. Just the amount of crowding that would entail, especially when they'd have to be confined to the common areas of the station...'

'We know. And we are reminding most of the delegates that while they may be able to attend certain functions, there may be at least some functions where either their families, their staffs, or both, may be unable to attend or even be on board DS9. They have been informed of the space limitations, the limitations on life support, the security concerns that must be addressed, and the fact that the Federation won't be the only people in attendance.'

Riker smiled. 'So the entire Alliance is showing up?'

Picard smiled wryly. 'Fortunately, the Klingons and Romulans are showing quite a bit more restraint. But there are also the Clan members who must be present, the Bajorans, and a delegation from the Cardassian Empire.'

Riker looked surprised. 'Cardassians?'

Picard nodded. 'Of course. They've signed a nonaggression pact with all of the members of the Alliance, as well as the Bajorans, and they've benefited from the Clan's presence as much as we have. Not only did the Clan stopping the Dominion end the Cardassian civil war and eliminate the threat that the Obsidian Order posed to the rest of Cardassia and the Cardassians, but with the Clan giving us so much and helping us capitalize on the sudden influx of resources after that battle, they were given a new fleet of ships that were larger, more powerful, and more advanced than anything that they were currently capable of building on their own.'

'Yes, sir. I'm very well aware of exactly how that feels.'

Both men chuckled, enjoying the chance to relax and spend at least some time together again.

'How long before we actually leave for this mission?'

'Three days. We should arrive at DS9 at about the same time as the delegations from the Romulan and Klingon Empires. We're not sure exactly when the delegation from the Cardassian Empire is going to arrive. The Alliance commanders in the Bajoran system are handling all of that and making sure that everything goes according to schedule.'

Picard sighed, wishing that there wasn't so much still to be done before they left. The sheer number of details that they needed to attend to was staggering just to think about. Riker raised his glass. 'A toast. May this mission be long and boring, and may we encounter nothing that Kahmmhi would consider "interesting" or "exciting".'

Picard smiled as their glasses met and they drank to that idea. There had been way too much excitement for his taste every time that he had been to DS9 in the past. It would be really nice to actually make a trip there that would allow him to simply rest, relax, and enjoy the amenities that the station had to offer. Perhaps even make a small side trip to Bajor to spend some time relaxing on a planet, perhaps puttering around in some old battle site or ruin so that he could exercise his interests in archeology. There had been a number of battles and skirmishes fought on Bajor during the Cardassian occupation, and there were still some relics and antiquities that had been lost or stolen during the occupation that hadn't been recovered after the war ended. The Bajorans would be very pleased to get any of them back. Especially any of the ancient artifacts that were related to the Prophets and their religious worship.

Korg looked at Karv'Tarek and shook his head. 'I have no qualms about just suddenly springing this newly acquired information on the Federation while they are here. It will make sure that they have to address it very openly and quickly, and they can't blame their fleet commanders for withholding information that they knew nothing about.'

'The terms of our Alliance do say that we must transmit the information to the ruling body of other Alliance members by the most efficient and secure means possible, and that it must be done as quickly as that can be safely arranged.'

Korg laughed, enjoying the way that his Romulan counterpart's mind worked. 'We did only receive the newest information and the analysis of the information collected to date very recently, and sending it to Earth would end up taking even more time for the members who need to see it to learn of its existence than waiting for them to arrive here and giving it to them personally would. And since they haven't exactly left any time in their busy schedules for us to meet with them privately...'

Karv'Tarek smiled. 'Then we must just take whatever opportunity presents itself to make them aware of the new information, even if it is only in the broadest of terms. Withholding the details will significantly decrease the risk of secure information being accidentally leaked to the civilians in the Federation, or to anyone else in the Alpha quadrant who might be interested in acquiring such data or knowing that we possess it.'

'I will inform Gowron and the members of the High Council. You will have to inform the proconsul and the members of the Senate.'

'Agreed.'

They just hoped that things didn't suddenly become too interesting.

Riker watched closely as the checklist had grown steadily shorter with each group that had been transported to the ship and checked in at one of the landing bays. After the first few hours, he had quit even bothering to take any calls complaining about the inconvenience of having to come aboard his ship in a shuttle.

'Watson, how are we doing so far?'

His first officer smiled as she snapped to attention. She was tall, slender, blonde, and definitely female. She was also one of the best officers to come out of the academy in years, and had definitely earned the right to be first officer of one of the Federation's newest and most powerful ships. One of the first ships in their fleet that had been built for war. 'Well ahead of schedule so far, sir. If this was one of the old Galaxy or Sovereign class ships, we couldn't possibly carry this many people and even our transporters wouldn't be able to keep up with the influx of passengers. But with our landing bays, we're capable of handling this many people without any problems whatsoever.'

'And did we get the extra small craft that we requested?'

'Yes, sir. They were kind of reluctant to give us so many, but reminding them that this was the only way for us to evacuate the ship and provide life support or transport to all of our passengers if we ran into any problems ended all of their complaints rather suddenly.'

Riker smiled. 'I'll just bet that it did. Was that before or after you informed them that you were going to make sure that our guests knew exactly why there weren't enough lifeboats for everyone if we did run into trouble.'

She grinned, then tried to look completely innocent and clueless. 'I have no idea what you are referring to, sir.'

'Right. So, what is our capacity?'

'For short range missions, we should be able to get about three hundred people on board each of the larger transports that are the size of a Clan HAT. Our fifty can carry their crews and fifteen thousand people. To make sure that we have extra and don't overload our systems or crowd everyone, we moved some of the fighters that we don't have crews for to other landing bays and filled their bays with additional transports. We managed to get another thirty five of them on board, so we have plenty of craft to get everyone off of the ship rapidly in case of a real emergency, and we have the personnel to launch all of the shuttles and many of the fighters, though most of the fighters will be piloted by personnel who have basic skills in flying them.'

'Not to worry. We're not taking them into combat.'

'Aye, sir.'

'Let me know if you have any problems. I'm going to attend to the needs of some of our more important and prestigious visitors before we break orbit.'

'Aye, sir.' She maintained a straight face until he left, but then smiled. He hid it very well, but she found it so very cute and slightly funny the way he very subtly stressed "important" and "prestigious" when he was talking about a certain group of assistants and aides who thought that the achievements of their boss were actually a reflection of their own worth. Personally, she couldn't stand the toadies, but she admired the way that Captain Riker seemed to be so totally controlled and capable of dealing with them and treating them so well. She hoped that being his first officer would provide her with that ability when she was older and more mature.

Sisko looked embarrassed when he finally met Kahmmhi for lunch at Quark's. 'Sorry to have kept you waiting, Tahr Kahhni.'

'Sisko...' She frowned disapprovingly.

'Right. Sorry, Kahm. Too much time dealing with the professional side of things and not enough time relaxing.'

'Apology accepted. Now, no talk of work or anything until after we order.'

Sisko nodded, and Kahmmhi motioned for the waitress. She came over immediately, took their orders, and then went to get their food prepared.

'OK. Before you have a stroke or something, what's wrong?' Kahmmhi smiled sweetly, and even with all of his exposure to her in the past, Sisko was almost totally disarmed by how sweet and innocent she appeared to be.

'This is quickly turning from a fiasco into a nightmare. There are actually more people coming out here for this celebration than the station can handle. And that's just the "official delegations" and their families, friends, and assistants.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'I'm sure that something will come up that will actually keep most of them from being too disappointed at not being able to meet with me personally.'

'Yeah. We're doing what we can to limit the number of people on the station overall, and to make sure that only those who are supposed to be here are actually here during any of the formal meetings. I'm still not sure about exactly what some of the meetings are supposed to be for, but...'

Krohn chuckled. 'Politicians will make any excuse to hold a meeting in order to make themselves seem smarter and more important. We can handle them.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'I have a suggestion that might help. Hold all of their special meetings on board the PUFF. Some of our meeting areas there are much larger than anything that you could provide, and we can provide all of the security. Believe me, there won't be any problems with making sure that people don't manage to sneak aboard our ship.'

'I'll suggest it, but I'm not sure how some of them will take that suggestion.'

'Well, if they don't want that, and you don't have the room for all of them, the only other logical suggestion is that we hold the meetings on Bajor. We could always build a large enough meeting place there. Construction on a building that size wouldn't take more than one or two weeks.'

Sisko chuckled. 'I'll keep that in mind, but you've made Bajor an independent player with all of the changes that have been made.' He looked thoughtful for a moment. 'Though that isn't as bad as it might sound. This is their system, and they are allies of sorts. Perhaps that might be the best solution after all.'

Krohn chuckled. 'It would keep you from having to deal with and take responsibility for all of those politicians, wouldn't it?'

Sisko shrugged. 'I won't feel bad about that. I might if Kyra was going to have to deal with them herself, but now that she's their fleet admiral...'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'Since she's fully military now, it's someone else's problem. Probably Remal Sintar, since he's the one that they've been having interact with all of our people on the construction projects.'

Their food arrived, and they began eating. While they were eating, they refrained from talking about the problems that they were dealing with and just chatted socially, swapping stories and relaxing. After lunch was finished, they spoke briefly, and then left to deal with the rest of the things that were still on their respective schedules.

Riker looked up as Admiral Picard entered the room. 'Thank you for coming, sir.'

'What did you want to see me about, Will?'

'I was trying to determine the best way to get to DS9. Quickly and efficiently.'

'There aren't that many routes available. You can pretty much travel in a straight line, so what are you trying to decide about?'

'There is a more indirect route, but it would take us three and a half weeks to get there.'

'That's about the same amount of time that it would take if we did a straight line run at warp nine. There are restrictions about using high warp speeds.'

'Yes, sir. The other route is through hyper.'

'Hyper? You have a direct route to DS9 using hyper? When was that discovered?'

'Recently. As soon as we had some of the long range shuttles modified, we began exploring out from Earth to see what we could find through hyper. There is a hyper stream that connects Earth to Vulcan. The trip is three days.'

Picard nodded. 'And it's three weeks from Vulcan to DS9 using hyper, as the Clan discovered during their first visit to the Alpha quadrant.'

Riker nodded. 'We'll use gravitics to cross systems from one hyper point to another, and hyper to travel between systems. It's not quite as fast as the Clan could do it, and we could actually use warp engines to cross the systems, but it's not that important to shave time off of our trip.'

Picard nodded, smiling at Riker. 'That sounds like a very good plan.'

'As long as we don't inform the civilians who are on board, they won't even know that they're in hyper. And they won't be driving my crew nuts trying to see what is happening.'

'They're going to be curious, Will. This is an entirely new experience for them. You'd probably save yourself a lot of problems and headaches if you just announced it and put it on the monitors for everyone to watch. By the time that they've seen it a few times and realize how boring that type of travel really is, they won't even bother watching any more.'

Will smiled. 'Good idea, sir. Would you inform the dignitaries of our route and our method of travel, and let them know that there will be a visual feed from our monitors for them to watch if they're interested in seeing where we are and what hyperspace actually looks like?'

'That would be my pleasure, Will.'

'Now that we've got the formalities out of the way, and all of the business that's pressing can wait for at least a few minutes...' Riker walked over to a synthesizer, returning with two cups. One had his coffee, and the other was a large cup of hot Earl Grey tea. 'Perhaps you'd care to join me for a leisurely drink? I'm sure that it's tea time somewhere in the Empire.'

Picard laughed at the joke. 'Would that be the Romulan or Klingon Empire, Will?'

'I'm not quite certain. Though we could always call up the Cardassians and ask them what time it is there.'

The two of them chuckled, sat, relaxed, and enjoyed their drinks. They only had a few minutes, but those few stolen moments were always all the more precious.

Mara looked at James and Julie. 'We've got less than three weeks, and we need a very large structure built. It has to be fully enclosed, self contained, and capable of holding at least twenty thousand or more. We need to build a large meeting room or assembly room on a rock, and it has to have stadium seating.'

Julie shrugged. 'We can handle that easily. All three of our battalions are finished with all of our other building projects. Agnes and Warren should finish theirs in the next few weeks as well.'

James nodded. 'What are our limitations on materials?'

'No AM for the synthesizers and stuff, and no AM power sources. Other than that, we can use tohlvyhn and build the whole damned thing to Clan standards. Molecular honeycomb rebar, molecular three dimensional bonding, the works.'

'Arch and crossbeam construction for the structural supports and aesthetics. Mihlkyrrhnhm panels covering the entire roof. Windmills on towers at the corners. Standard cistern system. No problems there.'

'Tiered seating. Need to give the steps some surfacing for grip and traction. And we'll have to pad the seats.'

Mara nodded. 'Then let's get to it. We go over the final plans tomorrow, and begin construction the day after. Make sure that your troops know exactly who does what, where, and when. No mistakes, and no delays.'

Sisko shook his head in amazement as he looked at the huge building that they had just landed beside. 'That is absolutely amazing. It looks huge.'

'It can seat fifty thousand.' Kahmmhi smiled. She had no idea what the Bajorans would use a huge building like this for, since it couldn't exactly be rearranged or remodeled on the inside without a lot of effort. Perhaps they had some type of sport that was really popular?

As they went inside, they went down a long, wide corridor and entered a large clear space on the floor where he could see tiers of seats all around them.

'They can put in a stage, or put in railings and set up various types of sports arenas or other things on the floor, depending on what they want to use the space for at the time. And the seating is fixed, but you can set up the platforms so that you regulate what is seen or where people are sitting in relation to the platform.'

'Amazing. This is an astounding accomplishment, Kahm.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'I'll be sure to pass along your comments to the SeaBees. They'll be very pleased to hear that their efforts were appreciated.'

'Well, if the politicians were looking for someplace that they could hold some type of celebration, you've certainly given it to them.'

Krohn chuckled. 'They might not be quite so eager to spend a lot of time here after they learn that Virginia has already ordered a minimum of ten platoons of Raiders to be inside this place for security any time that Kahmmhi is in here for anything official.' Lyhssyha and the others laughed softly while Kahmmhi scowled at Krohn. 'And that there are going to be at least twice that number outside and ready for immediate response, along with their rides.'

Sisko smiled grimly, realizing that they were only doing what came natural to the Clan. They WERE on a rock.

'Ah, yes. Security must always be much more worried about her safety whenever she's on a rock.'

Krohn shrugged. 'This rock's not so bad. We know it, and we have friends here in this system. If there is any threat to Kahmmhi, whatever the source, we already know that the Bajoran Navy is going to be fighting right alongside us to eliminate the threat.'

Sisko nodded, knowing that he wasn't joking. He'd known Kyra for a very long time, and worked intimately with her in a number of different situations. She'd throw her entire fleet into the fray, regardless of the odds, just to protect Kahmmhi and try to protect her world. The Klingons and Romulans would also probably do the same. As for the Federation forces in the system, Admiral Yamato was loyal to the Alliance and to their obligations to the Clan. Just about everyone in this system owed their lives to Kahmmhi and the Clan. Even if nobody in the Clan would even acknowledge that debt.

They walked around the floor area, checking out the way that the place had been built, how it had been set up for viewing, and how it could be modified for almost anything that you wanted to do inside it. Then they climbed up to the top rows of seats and looked down, seeing how small some of the people who were still walking around inside the building looked from this vantage point.

'The seating arrangement definitely favors those who are down lower if they want to see any of the individuals. But what about the acoustics?'

'The Bajorans helped us with that, as did Chief O'Brien. They told us how you use various types of equipment to provide acoustical enhancements to some of your buildings, so we put that type of system in.'

'It looks very nice, but what if they get here and they still decide not to use the building?'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'The Bajorans were very happy when we suggested building this for them. While there was at least some hesitancy at first, I reminded them that, as a neutral party, they could become important for the Alliance by serving as an independent neutral party for meetings between them and whoever they were having to negotiate with. The fleets would remain here to ensure the safety of the system and the wormhole, and they could still be seen as relatively impartial mediators. They could help work out trade agreements with other groups who aren't part of the Alliance, peace talks between the Alliance and any enemies they might have at the time, and mediate in discussions between the Alliance and any groups who may want to join and become part of the Alliance in the future.'

Sisko was very impressed. Kahmmhi had certainly thought this through very carefully, and everything that she had said would benefit both the Alliance and the Bajoran system. If they could establish some peaceful contacts in the Delta quadrant, the Bajorans could flourish and prosper by simply serving as a crossroads for exchange of information, cultures, and goods.

'You've managed to do a lot to change almost every aspect of normal life for us, and I'm not just talking about in this system, either.'

'If you survive, then it was probably a good thing. If you don't, at least we warned you and gave you a fighting chance before you blundered into your culture's Kobayashi Maru.' Kahm smiled at Sisko's startled expression. He obviously hadn't expected her to know about that little test that StarFleet used. 'If what I've heard about that test is right, then it isn't fair, and it isn't inevitable. At least, not for some individuals. For cultures, however, that test is much more appropriate. Unlike individuals, cultures are much more likely to have problems adapting to new, sudden changes. Especially when they are major changes and they occur abruptly. A sudden, totally overwhelming attack by a very powerful enemy is much more likely to destroy your culture than anything else is right now. An individual is much more likely to survive something like that than your culture is.'

'Why would you say that?'

'In the case of the individual, a sudden, overwhelming attack gets your undivided attention, and every part of your body is working to is maximum potential in order to try to survive. Unlike your culture, where those who lead are often sitting in complete safety, light years away from the threat. They're not quite as motivated to make quick, definitive decisions about how to survive and defeat the threat. That degree of distance allows them to feel like they retain much more control over the situation than they actually do. By the time that the threat becomes real, consuming their attention, it may already be too late to save your society. There are times when you simply pass the point of no return. After that, the end is inevitable.' Kahmmhi smiled. 'That's why Clan leaders lead from the front. Threats have to go through them to reach the Clan.'

'I see your point. And that's why the Bajorans gave Admiral Nerys almost unlimited authority in handling the fleet?'

'Probably. We did have a few philosophical discussions which they seemed to take to heart. Having survived the occupation by the Cardassians, they're kind of receptive to the idea of using tactics that allow you to survive against much larger enemy forces. And they seem to have an obsession with discussing philosophical issues with others.'

Sisko smiled, but didn't say anything. The Bajorans would adore anything that allowed them to survive, and that went more than double if it meant that they could fight back and hurt larger forces without losing their own forces in the process. Though he would have loved to have seen and heard some of those discussions, if for no other reason than to watch Kahm at work and see how she had handled that situation. He'd had some long, complex, and very interesting philosophical discussions with some of the Bajoran leaders and priesthood in the past, and they really were very sharp witted.

'Well, that's about all that there is to see here. Unless you need to go over anything in particular or check out any of the details about this place.'

'No, that won't be necessary.'

'Well, then, let's head back to DS9 so that we can let you rest and relax.' Kahmmhi grinned. 'Besides, I told Kyra that if she met us at Quark's, you could tell her all about the place while we sat, relaxed, and ate until we were all stuffed.'

Sisko chuckled. 'I didn't think that it was possible for an Alpha to get that full from eating.'

Kahmmhi grinned. 'Well, I'm small enough that I CAN, but poor Max is another story entirely.'

They were all laughing at that as they went outside to the shuttle. Just after the shuttle took off and began its ascent toward DS9, Max spoke up. 'I heard that comment, Kahm. Just remember that if you ever turn Fluff on us, I'll make sure to tease you about what you consider "essential activities that are required for the maintenance of normal life functions".'

Kahmmhi stuck out her tongue and blew him a raspberry. 'Grandpa himself told me that screwing qualifies as one of the essential activities that are absolutely required for a Fluff to survive. So there.'

Max ruffled her hair, then hugged her. 'Take all of the pleasure out of teasing you, and I may stop doing it one of these days, squirt.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Ha! That will be the day. You and my Shadows are the only things that keep me grounded in reality and fully sane. Besides, the day that you can do that is the day that Lehr is officially no longer a chyrrhp.'

Sisko laughed along with them, having seen enough vids of Lehr to know exactly how likely that was to happen. It had about the same odds of an ice and dust meteor surviving a trip through the middle of a burning sun and coming out the other side with no signs of damage. It just was NOT going to happen. Ever.

Korg smiled as he received the transmission from Gowron. The new communications system was working perfectly. The only problem that they had with it was that they had to have a string of satellites to connect the systems or the signal was lost. That limited transmissions to systems that they had been to and connected to the satellite network. While that did have drawbacks, combined with the encryption and databurst transmission scheme that the system used, it did make all of the messages that were sent very secure.

'We should arrive in the Bajoran system within about a week. The Romulans believe that they will arrive the same day that we do. If the Federation delegation arrives before us, do not reveal any of the information that we sent ahead to them. We have determined, since you informed us of Kahmmhi's plan to hold their large meetings and celebratory parties on Bajor itself, to reveal the information to them in front of a large crowd in a very public gathering so that they can't do anything to prevent the dissemination of the information to their people.'

Korg acknowledged receipt of the message and sent his response to them. They would probably get it while they were in hyper, still at least a few days away from this system. He sat and thought about the message for a few moments, then smiled and contacted Karv'Tarek.

When the connection was made and they were certain that the channel was scrambled and secure, he smiled. 'You should know that I just received a transmission from Gowron regarding disclosure of certain information to the Federation delegation.'

'Then it probably said pretty much the same thing that the proconsul sent in the message that I received just a few hours ago.'

'Right. I know that there is nothing wrong with our plans, and that we aren't doing anything to violate either the terms or the intent of the treaty that created our Alliance. But why do I get the distinct feeling that what we are going to announce is going to create all kinds of problems within the borders of the Federation?'

Karv'Tarek shrugged, then sighed softly. 'Our own empires have already purged those who would put their own interests over the very survival of our empires and our species. But the Federation has a very different form of government, and they allow all kinds of dissent and differences. Not only in their political leaders, but they actually seem to encourage that kind of behavior in their citizens. Their societies must learn that they have to adapt if they wish to survive. They can't remain so disparate and still contribute as a part of the whole. They have to support the things that serve as the very basis of their own defense or they will be destroyed. There are going to be some tough decisions, including how they prioritize their use of materials and resources. And they are going to have to start training more warriors if they intend to be more than a mere fleet presence.'

'StarFleet, or at least the field officers that we know to be competent, all see the necessity of the changes that we are making, and they are doing their best to emulate them. But they are limited in what they can do, both in terms of the scope of their efforts and in the resources that they have available to work with. And we both know the very things that are handicapping them are the limitations that are put on them by their leadership. That is why we must make sure that they get the wake-up call and begin keeping up with their fair share of production of both fleet ships and small craft, as well as recruitment and training of troops. The Federation is too large and powerful a segment of this sector for us to lose them and still expect to be capable of meeting the potential threats that we know about in the time frame that we realistically have to work with. We may have a couple of centuries to complete our preparations before we face our first major challenge, but if we aren't ready for that challenge by then, we won't ever recover in time to stop the others from whittling us down by sheer attrition.'

'I agree with you fully, Korg. But all that we can do now is wait and see what happens. It's not like we didn't know that things were going to be very hectic when we first heard of this plan. But we agreed to it, and now all that we can do is sit back and see if it works.'

'And if it doesn't?'

'We remain with the Alliance and help prod the Federation into committing themselves to making as much of an effort as they can to meet the goals of the Alliance for as long as that's possible. Even if they resist changing their beliefs for a very long time, eventually even they have to face reality and deal with the universe as it truly is instead of how they would wish it to be.'

'How do you think they'll respond when they are actually here and see the Bajoran Navy?'

Karv'Tarek looked very thoughtful for a moment. 'That will be interesting to see. It's not that powerful, not as big, and not as threatening compared to what they still have inside this system, but their tiny navy only contains ships that are made to the best standards that we can currently achieve with all of the Clan technology that we've been able to incorporate. I'm not sure that they'll even understand what an achievement this is for the Bajorans, or what it represents to their system.'

Korg sneered. 'They will as soon as a StarFleet officer explains to them that the quaint, tiny Bajoran Navy is about as powerful as the entire Alliance fleet that was at DS9 during the Dominion war, and that it is capable of creating just as much, if not more, destruction on any enemy force that they face. And that even if the Cardassians hadn't signed a nonaggression pact with both the Bajorans and the Alliance, the fifty Romulan warbirds and fifty Klingon battlecruisers that we gave to them couldn't begin to defeat the current Bajoran Navy.'

Karv'Tarek nodded. 'And that will only become even more apparent to everyone after Kahmmhi gives them the parting gift that she was working on.' She had discussed the matter with all three Alliance admirals in the system during a leisurely dinner months ago, so they all knew that she had certainly completed construction of her gift by now.

'Only if they understand exactly how capable it makes the Bajoran Navy small craft. They may not be capable of using them in the same way that the Clan does simply because we can't microjump through hyper to get out of range, but everything else will work. Besides, since we lack the numbers to saturate an area properly, using them the way that Kahmmhi taught us to would simply conserve on resources and make them even more effective for our tactics and abilities.'

They both smiled as they thought about what the new additions would mean. Such a small gift, and it lacked any real differences in technology now that they'd already received the additional upgrades from the Clan. And yet, with one small change in tactics and a small variation in their use of some resources, it would make the carriers that the Alliance and the Bajoran Navy had that much more effective in combat. They had both run their own sims, and the increase in effectiveness could literally make the difference between failure and survival for their races once they entered combat. To warriors, that was all that mattered.

The alarms went of inside DS9, causing Sisko to come running from his office and enter the station's operational command center to see exactly what was going on.

'Report.'

'Sir, we are reading an entry into the system.'

'From the wormhole?' He knew that he would have been informed if any unexpected shipping had been seen approaching the system on their outlying sensor arrays.

'No, sir. This came out of hyper. Designated as Beta Point.'

Sisko nodded. Now that they knew of the existence of hyperspace, and could use it, they had been given some of the Clan hyper maps that had been generated during the Clan's first visit to this system. The three hyper points had been designated as Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Gamma was the one that led toward the Gamma quadrant. Beta led toward the Romulan and Klingon empires. Alpha led toward Vulcan and Earth. And with the wormhole leading toward the Delta quadrant, it was sometimes referred to as the Delta Point, but everyone on DS9 generally just referred to it as the wormhole, since it wasn't really a hyper point.

'Are you reading any IFF or detecting any message?'

'Affirmative. Three ships. One is a battleship, two are smaller. I think that they're warships, sir.'

'Romulan or Klingon?'

Before a response could be made, there was in incoming message. As soon as it was displayed, Sisko saw that it was Gowron.

'Greetings, Captain Sisko. We should warn you that the Romulans are about five hours behind us in the hyper stream, so you will detect their entry into the system within just a few hours.'

'Thank you for informing us, High Councillor. May we offer you the amenities of our station?'

'I will visit your station shortly, captain. But first I must visit with Korg and receive an update from him so that I know everything that I need to about my fleet's current status.'

'Of course. We'll be available at your convenience.'

The communication cut off. Sisko looked at Worf as they both exchanged knowing looks. Everyone in the military arms of StarFleet knew that the Klingons, Romulans, and even the Bajorans were trying to get the Federation to actually live up to their commitments to the Alliance in the interests of the overall safety and continued stability of the entire Alpha quadrant. While they had been using diplomatic means and constant reminders in the past, the actual media circus and political sideshow that the Federation had made regarding their send-off of the Clan was an opportunity that was too good to pass up. Whatever it was that they were planning, there would be so many people present in this system, and so much media attention, that there would be no way for anyone in the Federation to keep the message from being spread throughout the entire Federation just as quickly as the media coverage would allow. Sisko had no doubt that once the citizens of the Federation heard everything for themselves, there would be much more political pressure for those who were attempting to wrangle at least some self-serving interests or political leverage out of the situation to fall into line and actually do whatever was best for the survival of the entire Federation and the Alliance as a whole. Things were about to become very interesting inside this system, and he meant that exactly the one way that Kahmmhi didn't like to think about when she said that word.

Four and a half hours later, Sisko was informed that the Romulan ships had just entered the system with a battleship and three warships. The Romulans had announced their arrival, but it was the only standard routine communications that occurred when a ship entered the system, so Sisko didn't have to deal with the proconsul himself. Sisko wasn't even sure which of the two Romulan proconsuls had come to Bajor for this meeting.

He had gone back to work, and was about to call it a day when he received a message.

'Captain Riker. Good to see you. Are you entering the system as well?'

Riker smiled. 'I'm afraid not. We'll be there in about a day and a half at our current speed. I couldn't begin to tell you where we are in real space, but if we were both in real space, we wouldn't be able to have a real time conversation. We're using the Clan comsat to link us through hyper.'

Sisko nodded. 'I'll see you when you reach the system, then.'

Riker nodded, and the communication ended. By this point in his mission, Riker was seriously wishing that he was part of the Clan, where they didn't even HAVE politicians. It wouldn't have been as bad if some of the guests on his ship actually understood the way that the universe really worked and simply accepted reality as a given. Of course, his crew and some of the staff who had come along with the dignitaries were handling many of the problems so that he never learned about them. He was definitely going to strongly suggest to StarFleet, in the strongest terms possible, that they move at least ONE of the transports up in priority so that it could handle missions such as this. A ship that was designed and set up to haul passengers and supplies, and a crew that was trained to handle civilians who didn't understand the limitations of life aboard a starship would make this trip much easier on everyone. And it would allow him and his crew to actually serve their new purpose of guarding the Alliance from external threats, rather than playing babysitter to a group of people who should be serving the interests of the people that they represented rather than getting whatever they could out of their jobs and trying to satisfy their own whims. Regardless of what they might think, while this was some fantastic getaway vacation for them, the Orion wasn't some luxury cruise ship that had been built for their pleasure and entertainment. It was one of the first Federation battleships ever constructed, and was intended to be used as a warship.

Sisko sighed. Another day and a half before this system became the biggest security nightmare in the entire Alpha quadrant. Fortunately, the Federation, the Romulans, the Klingons, the Bajorans, and even the Clan were all providing their own parts in that security, so it wasn't going to be as much of a headache for him to deal with as it would have been otherwise. He gave silent thanks that Kahmmhi had already had the foresight to change the meeting point to the surface of Bajor so that he didn't have to worry about trying not to offend dignitaries, their families, their staff, and whatever hangers on they had with them when he limited who could be on DS9. The station had limitations on life support and space, and that simply did NOT change just because some event that people wanted to attend because of its intrinsic historic significance was taking place.

Sisko sighed, shaking his head in disbelief at human nature. The Federation had managed to get rid of the problems of overcrowding, overpopulation, lack of education, hunger, and poverty, but they still hadn't managed to figure out a way to make sure that people understood that just because they were a government official who held a particular title or office, that didn't automatically mean that they could do something just because they really wanted to. The laws of physics still applied to them just the same as everyone else, and there was one hell of a difference between an individual's rights and responsibilities and his privileges. Oh, well. He supposed that education didn't necessarily equate to either intelligence or understanding. He knew that it certainly didn't correlate to common sense, or even the ability to deal with reality, in many cases.

Now that the Romulans and Klingons had arrived inside the system, there was a lot of activity in various areas. The amount of comm traffic in the system went up by at least an order of magnitude, with lots of communications between the various groups who were inside the system. The Bajorans were contacting everyone in the system to try to coordinate things so that everyone knew what the itinerary was for the meetings that were to be held on Bajor. Sisko was having to coordinate with all three admirals in the system so that all of the normal Alliance business and any additional problems that were created by the additional ships being in the system were being taken care of properly. And the three Alliance fleets were in almost constant contact with each other, while the Klingon and Romulan fleets also kept in contact with their picket fleets.

Sisko shook his head as Worf growled, trying not to smile at his frustration.

'Sir, some of the requests that we're getting seem to be intentionally designed to be impossible to fulfill.'

'What makes you think that, Mr. Worf?'

'There are numerous requests for permission to board the station, but they are all trying to come over at the same time.'

'Remind them that we have limited docking capabilities, Mr. Worf, and inform them that we will only allow them to use two docking bays per fleet, so they will have to coordinate their activities with their fleet commanders.'

Worf smiled, then began happily following that order. It would cut down on the amount of traffic around the station considerably, as well as forcing the fleet commanders to organize their shore leaves. They could deal with the hassle and all of the demands from those who were being unreasonable.

'And Mr. Worf, make sure that their shore leaves take precedence over the leisure activities of those who are going to be arriving in the system in just a day or two. They all know the rules for this station, and they know how to follow them, and just mentioning that Kahmmhi can always provide Clan security if that becomes necessary to maintain order on the station will make sure that nobody wants to get too far out of line.' Sisko chuckled. 'We wouldn't want Constable Odo to be too overworked by crewmen who just need some time to rest and relax.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And please remind Constable Odo to make sure that Quark doesn't start trying to gouge the price on holodeck time. I know that he's been running a very reputable business for a while now, but we don't want to overlook the possibility of him slipping with so much temptation at his fingertips, so to speak.'

Worf chuckled, then passed the message along to Odo. Quark was doing so well that he hadn't even been overworking his brother Nog.

When he returned to his office, Sisko had communications put him through to Kahmmhi.

'Sisko. What a pleasant surprise. What can I do for you?'

'I just wanted to make sure that you were aware that the Federation battleship Orion is scheduled to arrive in this system soon. I don't know how many diplomats and dignitaries are on it, but the ship is packed, so it must be at least thousands.'

Kahmmhi smiled sweetly. 'That is what we built the stadium for.'

'You seem to be very happy for someone who knows that you're going to have to deal with literally hundreds of politicians and thousands of very curious people who think that their power and influence should entitle them to at least some special privileges. Especially when you know very well that a large number of them think that their position or influence should entitle them to at least meet with you personally for a short time.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'We have that idea in the Clan as well. Sons and daughters of the Tahr Kahhn are fully expected to do their best and lead by example at all times. You are given great privilege in exchange for giving your best in all of your duties all of the time.'

'Great privilege, huh? I must have missed that part of your history.'

'Oh, yes. Certainly. You get to lead, follow, or get out of the Clan. You get to enjoy the unbelievable thrill of becoming responsible for more and more duties as you prove that you are capable of handling your job and advancing to the next level. You get to spend more of your time doing your duties, and have even less time for your family, and even your own needs. You get to try to do the things that are impossible, and yet you are expected to at least try to achieve the goal and accomplish them to the best of your abilities anyway. My grandfather is a great example of this.'

Sisko sighed and shook his head. She was baiting him and giving him grief. Of course they had no use for politicians in the Clan. They went for the simplest, most straightforward solution that solved the problem and kept it from ever becoming a problem again in the future. Everyone got their fair share of whatever resources the Clan had available, and they shared what they had with other Clans whenever there was need and they could help. And everyone was given their job based on merit and the proven ability to do that job. Those who screwed up were demoted or punished, depending on the situation. And those who were incompetent weren't followed by anyone, regardless of who they were or who their family was. It was a simple society and it worked. For them.

Kahmmhi laughed at Sisko's distraught expression. 'Lighten up. You need to relax and enjoy life. Especially when you have such a short life span.'

Sisko shrugged, then smiled. 'We all can't be young and beautiful forever, Tahr Kahhni.'

'Oh, great. You wait until you know that I'm about to leave the quadrant forever, and NOW you finally show some interest in practice courting. I think that Jadzia and Kyra were right when they said that your reluctance to take ANY time away from your duties was simply a cover for your fear of commitment.'

Sisko burst out laughing heartily. 'You've been studying our culture too much lately, Kahm. Now you're starting to talk like a counselor. Please, leave before you start talking like a politician. I'd hate to go to my grave thinking that I'd exposed you to something like that when you were so young and impressionable, and that now you were destined to go around talking like that for the rest of your very long life.'

'That's not funny. My grandfather would spank my bare ass in front of ALL of the Clans if he ever heard me talking like that. And my own mothers would hold me down for him to do it.'

Sisko found that so funny that he laughed even harder, and couldn't stop laughing. It wasn't long before Kahmmhi and all four of her Shadows were laughing like that as well.

Sisko finally managed to catch his breath. 'My apologies for causing you such distress, Kahm. I just hope that you have some way to keep the politicians and their flunkies out of your hair, because you are going to be swarmed by them before you know it.'

'Oh, I doubt that I'll be buried under the political masses. One thing that being around grandpa was really good for was teaching me strategy and tactics at a very young age. Give them something to distract them and make them think that there is some sort of emergency for them to solve, and they suddenly devote themselves to it in order to become "heroes", especially if they are being shown to others by the media.'

'That sounds like you have something up your sleeve. Whatever it is, I don't want to know. If I don't know anything, I can't tell anyone about it. And I certainly can't be held responsible for not warning my superiors about it before they got the chance to look like absolute fools in front of the half of the Federation that's interested enough to watch the vids.'

'Have it your way. Just don't blame me if you don't like surprises.'

Sisko signed off, thanking his lucky stars that he wasn't a politician. Dealing with Kahmmhi was definitely more than any politician who knew his limitations would willingly volunteer for. He had no idea how smart she was, but it was definitely much smarter than most of the people that Sisko had ever met. He'd heard comments that Dark Elves were supposed to be very intelligent, and sometimes very aggressive as well. Sisko had no idea how aggressive Kahmmhi was by Clan standards, but he certainly knew that she was intelligent as hell. And any politician who screwed with her deserved whatever she gave him in return.

When the Orion came out of hyper, Riker ordered his comm officer to inform DS9 of their arrival. He did, and then began informing Riker of numerous messages that were incoming. Most of them were for various members of the diplomatic delegation on board. Riker ordered them to be delivered, and then went to his ready room for more privacy so that he could make an announcement of their arrival in the Bajoran system to all of his guests.

As soon as the announcement was made, thousands of people were either on the comm trying to initiate calls or were using their viewscreens to try to see something inside the system. When he saw what was happening, Riker couldn't help laughing at their predictability. Every ship in this system was under stealth, and none of the monitors that they were using had the appropriate modifications to display stealthed ships. They could detect Alliance ships using stealth, the older cloaking, the even older cloaking that had been used by the Dominion, the Klingons, and the Romulans, and other forms of cloaking. They could detect Bajoran ships because they used stealth that was the same as that which the Alliance currently used. But they could NOT detect stealthed Clan ships unless the ships dropped their stealth to levels that their technology and sensors could detect. From what the experts on stealth had told him during briefings, that required the Clan ships to reduce their efficiency by about ninety percent. Even the bridge crew couldn't see the Clan ships in this system unless the Clan wanted them to, and that was with the best sensors that the Alliance had access to.

As they moved across the system, Riker was informed that they were to assume a standard orbit over Bajor, and not to move to a parking position near DS9. He was glad to comply with that order, since it meant that the bulk of the traffic from the ship would probably be headed to Bajor, and wouldn't be overcrowding an already small space station that would be offering shore leave to the crews of the Alliance ships that were already inside the system.

As they approached Bajor, they were hailed by the planet and directed to assume an orbit that wasn't directly over the meeting site. In fact, it would put the Orion several thousand kilometers from the meeting site. They were definitely keeping the airspace over the site clear, which was standard procedure for any meeting site that was to be considered neutral ground. If nobody was in orbit directly overhead, then nobody there could claim that they were feeling threatened by the force that was being held over them in orbit. Not that the Orion's new lasers couldn't directly target the facility from their current location, but still, it was an ancient custom that was commonly held by a large number of races and cultures.

Riker contacted the Pegasus, Admiral Yamato's flagship.

'Ah, captain, it's good to see you again. How is the Orion?'

Riker smiled broadly. 'After all of the upgrades and refits, it's like a completely new ship, sir.'

'Yes, we've discovered that the new armor makes the ship handle much better when we're moving, and our engine efficiency is actually dramatically increased, even though the mass of the ship is higher as well. The structural integrity fields aren't doing nearly as much of the work, either.'

'Yes, we've noticed that as well. I was actually calling to see if you knew if everyone was already inside the system or not.'

'All but one group. The Cardassians.'

'The Cardassians are coming here for these meetings?' Riker was actually surprised. He had known that they were sending someone to attend this event, but hadn't been informed that they were actually going to be involved in the official meetings. And with their relatively close proximity, he would have thought that they would have been one of the first groups to arrive.

'They are becoming much more interested in what we are doing, and much more cooperative and helpful in making sure that our common borders remain safe since the war, captain. Not to mention that since they've signed the nonaggression pact, they actually are eager to build good relations with us.'

'I'm sure that the gifts that the Klingons and Romulans helped cement that bond.'

'Yes, it did. But not purely out of greed or some attempt to get even more technology from us, either. They seem to truly appreciate the fact that we've allowed them to retain their complete independence, didn't even try to invade their systems or put sanctions on them when we clearly could have, and are now providing them with the resources and means to provide for their own internal and external security much better than they've ever been capable of doing in the past. They realize that this does benefit us as well, but they also realize that we could have just left them almost defenseless and used them as a buffer zone, letting them bleed as they blunted any attacks on the Alliance from that direction.'

Riker nodded, seeing both the wisdom of her analysis and the wisdom of the gift that had been given to the Cardassians. It had done a great deal to change the situation in this entire sector in ways that would benefit both the Cardassian Empire and the Alliance, not to mention the Bajorans.

'Do we know when the Cardassians are supposed to arrive?'

'It shouldn't be more than another day at most. They do have to use warp travel to get here, since they lack both gravitics and hyper capabilities. And they're abiding by our own restrictions on high speed warp travel, since they now know how hazardous that could be in the long term.'

'Any idea on the size of the delegation that they're going to be sending?'

'Probably three or four of their new ships. But I don't expect their delegation to be very large. They did say something about bringing some people along to try to set up some trade relations and cultural exchanges with anyone who had anything to offer.'

Riker nodded. That made a lot of sense. And trading would give them access to things that would be much harder for them to acquire for themselves within their empire. What trade they did have established previously had pretty much dried up over the course of the Cardassian civil war and the Dominion war, and would probably take a few more years before it even began to become a viable market again. Traders knew that, other than weapons, there wasn't much of value left lying around inside a system after a protracted civil war. The civilians and their economy almost always took the brunt of any war.

'Thanks for the information, admiral.'

Yamato smiled and bowed. 'You are very welcome, captain. I hope that it won't be too long before you may return your "guests" to their proper place and resume your normal duties.'

'Thank you, admiral, for your concern. That is my wish as well.'

Gul Morken was in charge of the two warbirds, with Gul Derkur in charge of the two battlecruisers. The captains of the other two ships were newly promoted, and had little experience with ships that were larger than a small scout ship. But with the addition of their newly acquired fleet, the Cardassian navy was stretched kind of thin when it came to captains with command experience, so they used anyone who was qualified and hoped that they grew into their new command.

'DS9, this is Gul Morken of the Cardassian ship Tarkon. We are approaching the Bajoran system.'

'Thanks for the heads up, Tarkon. This is DS9. Admiral Nerys will provide your ships with instructions.'

'Thank you, DS9. We tried to contact her ship, but couldn't get in touch with the Sword of Bajor.'

'They are in hyper collecting antimatter for Bajor, and should return shortly. When you detect a small spatial disturbance that is similar to a wormhole, that should be her ship returning to the system. Maintain position and contact her then.'

'Affirmative, DS9. We are waiting at the edge of the system.'

Half an hour later, the sensors detected the signature that the operator on DS9 had described, so Gul Morken sent out a signal to the Sword of Bajor, and his response was almost immediate.

'Gul Morken. Sorry to keep you waiting. Our leaders required more antimatter than anticipated in order to operate some of the buildings that they were setting up to support all of the negotiations and house anyone who wished to remain on the planet during the meetings.'

'That is no problem at all, Admiral Nerys. I'm certain that it was important or you wouldn't have taken your ship out of the system and gone yourself. We are all aware of how difficult it can be to carry out all of the duties of a warrior and still do everything that your political leaders would require of you as well. It can certainly tax your time constraints.'

Kyra smiled. 'Yes. If you and your ships would just take heading one seven three mark four five and assume a standard parking orbit over Bajor, I can allow some of your troops to take shore leave on DS9 if they wish. There are also some secure facilities available for you on Bajor, as well as facilities for the trade delegation that you brought with you.'

'Thank you. I'll contact the planet for the coordinates that they want us to assume. Do you wish our ships to remain decloaked?'

Kyra shrugged. 'That is completely up to you. I know that it's energy intensive for you to keep your ships cloaked, but it is good practice for normal patrolling and responses to unknown situations. Fortunately, our own stealth doesn't require as much energy, and it actually uses more energy to overcome all of the normal stealth functions and completely expose our ship.'

'In that case, we'll run without cloaking. No use putting the extra wear on the cloaking devices when we're in a friendly system that is secure.'

'Have a safe trip, and a pleasant stay.'

'Thanks. I hope that we can set up some kinds of trade contacts at the very least.'

Kyra laughed. 'With all of the Federation delegates that they brought along this time, you should definitely have a good chance of doing that. There are THOUSANDS of them in the system.'

Gul Morken shook his head in amazement. There were just times when he was reminded of the great size and power of the Federation simply by how many planets and civilizations were contained in the Federation as member worlds. And there were other times when he was reminded that having that many worlds all clamoring to be heard on every topic made it almost impossible to get anything done quickly or efficiently. For some things, it really was beneficial to live in an empire.

By agreement of the Council, ambassadors Masters, T'Prang, and Sanchez were to handle the formalities of all interactions with the Clan during this visit to the Bajoran system. There were several hundred members of the Federation Council present, but they did not have either a quorum, or the authority to actually make any formal decisions without a full vote of the Council, so they didn't want to get into anything that was too intricate or complex at this time. They were, however, fully prepared to allow certain delegations that had been brought along to perform their functions and set up formal agreements for the Council to debate and vote on upon their return. Chief among them was the trade delegation, which was planning on meeting with the Bajorans, the Clan, and the Cardassians during this trip.

Masters looked at the other two ambassadors, having been chosen to be the spokesperson for their group because of how well she and Kahmmhi had been able to get along during their previous meetings.

'The trade delegates must be reminded that they really have very little chance of getting anything more from the Clan before they leave. They've already given us so much technology, and done so much to change our way of life, that we're already experiencing distinct social changes throughout our society. The Clan is very well aware of the problems that causing too much stress or rapid change can have to a society, and they're very unlikely to risk creating even more stress by introducing any more changes.'

'An excellent analysis, yet the trade delegates are still insistent upon being given the chance to try. They do have a point that there are still at least some major medical advances that we could offer to them in exchange for anything else that we can get in trade.'

Masters looked almost disgusted. 'We all know exactly how one-sided most of our technology exchange with the Clan has been in the past, and we know that we've actually given them very little of any real value in return. During the negotiations that occurred after they returned from the Delta quadrant, all that was really covered was what the Clan was going to be doing for us. There wasn't any exchange at all, and we didn't even offer to give them anything in return. The Clan may be doing what they can for us in their belief that they're protecting us from threats to humanity, but that doesn't mean that we should still just accept anything that they're willing to give us without even trying to give them anything in return.'

Sanchez nodded. 'Even the Bajorans gave the Clan samples of every single unique food, plant, and animal that they could find so that the Clan would be capable of using them in their synthesizers. They tried to give the Clan other things, but there was very little that was actually something that the Clan could use for anything except raw materials. They wouldn't even accept gold or other precious metals because they could be synthesized.'

T'Prang cocked her head. 'They did accept some unique gems and crystals that were formed, but only if they weren't extremely rare, precious, or especially significant to the Bajoran people. Though they did accept one of the message containers that were sent through the wormhole that the Bajorans believe to be a gift from the Prophets.'

'Probably only because it posed a significant scientific curiosity to them.'

'That conclusion is probable.'

'We should get started with our initial meetings with the Bajoran government so that we can get everything set up and work out all of the final details of the protocols of the meetings. Especially the larger gatherings that are scheduled to take place.'

The others agreed, and they began contacting the Bajoran officials in order to get things worked out. This was to be done quickly so that they didn't drag things out. The Clan was on a strict time schedule, and they would not wait around and miss their scheduled departure date. A cyclic wormhole didn't wait on anyone or anything, and none of them wanted to be responsible for the Clan being stuck here for another twenty plus years.

Remal Sintar was quickly realizing that he was definitely in over his head. Even with the help of aides and other members of the Bajoran Council, there was just so much to do all at once, and so little time to get it all done in.

'Just follow the instructions that we gave you, Narin. If it's not in the instructions, and it's some minor detail such as colors or something, just use your best judgment and decorate the place. As for the foods, there are going to be some mistakes made no matter how hard we try to make sure that there are not. There are simply too many species here, and not enough time to learn what is acceptable to all of them. Don't worry about offending their cultural values or social customs. Just make sure that we know what is in each dish so that we don't poison any of them.'

Narin nodded, wishing that she didn't feel that his instructions were so literal. Unfortunately, she knew that they were, and that missing any ingredients on a dish could end up poisoning some very important dignitary. That would be very bad, even if it was purely unintentional.

'Yes, Minister.'

'We know what the Cardassians can eat, and what they can't. Just make sure that nobody who's doing the food preparations actually tries to intentionally poison any of them.'

'Yes, Minister.'

'Listen to me very carefully, Narin. I know that some of our people still have some very bad feelings when it comes to the Cardassians. But this is very important. Admiral Nerys has said that she will personally execute ANYONE on this planet who attempts to break the nonaggression pact that we have with the Cardassians. And they came because Kahmmhi specifically invited them to help make things work more cohesively between our system, the Cardassians, and the Alliance. We do NOT want to piss of the Clan and make an enemy of them.'

'Yes, Minister.' Narin trembled fearfully. 'I will make sure that everyone knows that any attack or violence against ANY person attending this meeting could be considered an attack upon the Clan.'

'Good. Because much of the security for these proceedings will actually be provided by Admiral Nerys and the military, and the rest will be provided by the Clan. We won't even be able to see most of the Clan security troops, but they will be fully armed and in full combat armor. Their first response to any threat or attack could literally be a permanent solution to the problem.'

'Yes, Minister. I understand completely, sir.'

Narin dismissed her with a wave of his hand, and she immediately began working. He turned, then smiled. 'Ah, General Delkor. How many troops are we going to have here providing security?'

'Twenty platoons will be on duty, but only about eight of them will be on duty at any given time during the meetings. Four will be on standby alert. The remaining eight will be off shift, but can be activated in case of any real emergency. We don't expect anything to progress to that point.'

'And if it does?'

'So far as I know, the only Clan troops who will be here providing security will be Raiders. Kahmmhi's brother Max will be in charge of them. If there is any trouble so great that the security forces and their immediate backup can't handle it, I doubt that any troublemakers will still be alive before they can even attempt to activate any of the troops who are off duty.'

Remal nodded. 'I see. Thank you, general.'

The general saluted and left. What he had just said had made Remal feel safe and secure in some ways, but had also disturbed him much more than he wanted to admit. He had seen how quickly and efficiently Clan warriors, specifically their Raiders, dealt with most violent threats. The only real problem that their methods posed was that they were also very messy. It would not be something that any of the dignitaries or their families would be likely to EVER forget. No matter how long or how hard they tried. No matter how good it was, the fact was that counseling could only do so much when it came to helping people deal with really serious traumatic events in their lives.

Connie McNamara was astonished as she looked at the view below the ship. This was Bajor? The planet looked completely different, even from space, than it had when she had been in the system previously. The Clan had been constructing new buildings for the Bajorans when she had left. Now there were twenty very large, clean, sprawling cities with parks built into them, religious centers and other landmarks left over from before the Clan's arrival, and it looked greener inside the cities than it did anywhere else on Bajor.

'Those solar collectors are really beautiful from here, aren't they?'

She looked up, startled to see Ambassador Sanchez standing near her. 'Yes, they are. It makes the planet look much more alive and green than I've ever seen it.'

'Admiral Nerys even commented on it. How, after looking down at the planet for so many years from the viewports on DS9, it didn't even look like Bajor any more.'

'Yes, I can see how it would be even more startling to someone who was actually from Bajor. And to think that there are twenty huge complexes like that down there, holding the majority of the population of the planet.'

'There are also some smaller ones that the Clan built during their first visit.'

'Ah, yes, the detention camps.'

Sanchez smiled. 'They were used for that briefly, but the Clan really designed them to be fully functional, fully integrated cities, just as the others are. Before this recent building project, the island chain containing those facilities had changed from being uninhabitable to being the single most productive region on Bajor, and those living there had the highest standard of living on the entire planet.'

'Amazing. It's one thing to eliminate poverty and hunger, but quite another to make it so that the planet actually has a surplus that they can sell, trade, or store for emergencies.' Neither of them even wanted to think about making any comments about how it was even more amazing after the planet had been stripped of all of its most valuable resources during the long occupation by the Cardassians.

'They actually have the capability of shipping anything that they wish to any system in the quadrant while it is still alive and fresh.'

'What?' McNamara was astonished. She knew that the Bajorans had ships that had the capability of using hyper to travel, but even that took time.

'The stasis containers can be made large enough to allow them to ship small animals in stasis that are actually still alive. The largest stasis container that they can currently make is about the size of a gallon container.'

'When did the Clans give them this capability?'

'The same time that they gave the same capability to us. When they gave us the large, industrial synthesizers. It's just that the Bajorans are choosing to use their excess resources and energy in ways that we have chosen not to.'

'They only have to feed a single system.'

'And we've pointed out repeatedly that if we spend the resources to upgrade the smaller colonies and marginal systems so that they're capable of surviving on their own, they could use their excess to trade with us and we'd end up changing our systems over to the new technology even quicker than we would if we insist on starting by changing over all of the most populous planets and systems. Instead of resisting change simply because they could, everyone in the core systems would be clamoring for us to give them the new technology that the small colonies and recently settled worlds have so that they aren't considered the ones who are backward and have to live with resource restrictions.'

McNamara smiled. 'I think that I'll make that point to my supporters. It would solve a lot of the problems that we are encountering with those who wish to limit the impact of these technological changes on our society. The small colonies, outposts, and newly settled worlds are always strapped for resources and energy, and giving them the new technology would make them capable of standing on their own much more reliably.'

'They would have to have some shuttles that are capable of entering hyper and gathering the antimatter that they would require to maintain higher power levels so that they could more easily produce enough excess to allow them to trade with us, though we could also trade antimatter to those systems that don't have a naturally occurring hyper point for their ships to enter hyper through.'

'I'll keep that in mind as well.' That would allow the Federation to maintain at least some type of trading with the colonies so that they'd have some incentive to produce the things that the Federation needed and trade them for more of the antimatter that they would need for the extra power that would allow growth and recovery from any disasters or equipment failures.

'If we were to do that, how far behind would it actually set our ability to change over our current technology on our most populous planets?'

'Not all that far, really. Just the number of synthesizers and power sources that would be required for Earth would be sufficient to outfit hundreds of colony worlds at the very least. And once all of them are producing excess materials in the form of additional synthesizers...'

McNamara smiled. 'It's a self perpetuating system. They build enough to allow their own expansion, and trade their excess to us for things that they can't get or make themselves, as well as for antimatter. And systems that are in the Federation do have to pay their share of the taxes that allow the Federation to function, so we can allow them to pay in trade rather than in other forms of payment. With them producing the things that we need, in addition to the quantity that we can produce from the original factories, we'll be able to replace the existing technology on the other planets in the Federation even more quickly.'

'I'm sure that Kahmmhi had something like that in mind when she originally suggested doing what we could to make the process as efficient as possible.'

'Please, don't take this the wrong way, but I really wonder sometimes if that woman is more devious than she is intelligent, or the other way around. Not that it really matters, since the sheer magnitude of her skills is really scary either way.'

Masters laughed. 'I'm sure that if Kahmmhi heard you talking about her like that, she'd take it as a compliment. But she would probably be embarrassed by it, too.'

'Yeah. It's really hard to remember that you're not dealing with a career politician when you're talking to her. Everything that she does is directed toward achieving some goal, and you're never really quite sure exactly what it is that she's driving toward, since she always seems to misdirect your thinking until the very last minute.'

'She does enjoy using her mind and keeping her secrets. But she doesn't lie to us. Just because she's very selective in what she says and how she says it, and we accept the implications at face value, we draw the wrong conclusions about what she's saying and what it means. That can become very frustrating, but I do enjoy the mental challenge.'

'I'm glad that you enjoy it, ambassador. Because, speaking on behalf of all of the politicians who have dealt with her, it's very frustrating in the extreme.'

'I'll keep that in mind. Just don't expect us to be able to tell you exactly what you're getting out of any deals that we make before the negotiations are finally completed and finalized.'

McNamara couldn't help thinking that the suggestion that Masters had just made was the best advice she was ever likely to get when it came to dealing with the Clan. For once, the Federation had very little in the way of leverage to use to keep the outcome of the negotiations in their favor, and what they did have to offer wasn't so important to the Clan that they would be willing to alter their initial bargaining position very much, if at all.

The Bajorans had informed everyone that they intended to make the first day of the meetings at the meeting hall into a forum for announcements so that everyone who wished to inform other groups of their position, what they were wanting to achieve during the meetings, and what they had to offer for trade could do so. Then they would have whatever meetings were required, as well as holding several formal and informal functions so that all of the dignitaries and their guests could meet, mingle, and talk more informally. The entire series of meetings was to conclude with a large ceremony to thank Clan Silver Dragon for all that they had done for the quadrant and to give them a celebratory send-off.

With that in mind, there was a lot of discussion going on in the meeting hall as the large crowd gathered, waiting to see what was going to happen. The way that the announcement had been made indicated that there was going to be at least some kind of surprise announcement made at this meeting. That fueled all sorts of wild speculation about what it might be and who might be making it.

Kyra looked around, glad that at least the Bajoran formal uniform wasn't anywhere near as stuffy and restrictive as those that StarFleet made their personnel wear. There were literally thousands of people present. All of the personnel who could get time off duty, and who wanted to see this for themselves. The thousands who had come here from Earth with the Federation delegation. Bajorans who were minor functionaries in the government and those who were simply interested civilians. Members of the temples, representing the major temples to the Prophets from all across Bajor. Hundreds of Bajoran ground troops on duty. And though most of them couldn't even be seen or detected with a tricorder, there were at least hundreds of Clan Raiders inside this building right now as well. Including Max and his entire platoon.

Kyra sighed, looked at the dignitaries that she was with, and realized that all of them were feeling the very same nervousness as she was. This really was a turning point in the history of Bajor, and their planet was now the focus of the entire Alpha quadrant. That was readily evident by the huge number of reporters from all over the Federation who were here to document and record everything for posterity. There might not be any way to send this out live to the entire Federation, but they would make sure that every important event that was part of this series of meetings was spread throughout the entire Alliance and the rest of the Alpha quadrant.

The room became much more subdued as Admiral Nerys led in the Bajoran delegation that was going to preside over the meeting. There were two members of the Bajoran Council, including Remal Sintar, and Lyrrin Malkys to represent the temples to the Prophets. They were followed by Narin, the assistant to Remal Sintar who was in charge of overseeing the preparations for these meetings.

When they were seated, Kyra stood and addressed the audience. 'Thank you for coming, and allow me to welcome all of you to Bajor. I know how important these meetings could be historically, both for the Alliance and for the people of Bajor, and I'm sure that you're all very excited and eager to find out what is going to happen during these meetings. But before we begin, I must take this opportunity to warn you all, once again, that while you are on Bajor, this meeting hall is still considered neutral ground, and the entire complex is considered to be as sacrosanct as an embassy. There are Bajoran ground troops here to provide security, and they will enforce our laws and maintain peace and order.'

She paused, then looked around the huge hall at the thousands of visitors. 'I must also warn you that there are Clan troops here to maintain peace and order. They will handle all threats to the Clan, and in doing so, they will enforce Clan law. For those of you who do not understand this yet, let me explain it to you very clearly. Threats to the Tahr Kahhni are taken very seriously. ANYONE who makes any kind of physical threats may not survive long enough for us to even question them. However, if you are captured by the Clan, they will question you. Under their laws, anyone caught trying to commit murder or attacking the Clan is an enemy, and they have no rights. They will torture you to extract information that they deem necessary, and then they will hunt down and capture anyone who had anything to do with your crime and bring them to justice as well. For most major crimes, the Clan has one real penalty. Death. Either by decapitation with a sword, or by making you walk out of an airlock naked. Regardless of your rank or position, don't expect anyone here to be able to help you or make sure that you aren't convicted, sentenced, and punished according to Clan law if you break any of their laws in that manner.'

The entire building was totally silent now. That announcement was clearly sobering to everyone in attendance.

'Also, if you are mingling with Clan members at a party, do not attempt to blame alcohol, drugs, or intoxication if you get out of hand. Trying to force yourself on a Clan female is considered rape, attempting to rape a Clan female is considered rape, and threatening to rape a Clan female is considered rape. All three have the same penalty. Death.' Kyra smiled grimly. 'Though if you actually attack a Clan female and attempt to rape her, she will probably kill you accidentally before anyone else can kill you quickly and cleanly with a blade. No matter what you have heard about how strong Clan members are, they are stronger than you think.'

Nobody in the building moved or said a word.

Kyra smiled. 'Now that we've got your undivided attention and you realize how serious these meetings are to be taken, it is my distinct pleasure to introduce Tahr Kahhni Kahmmhi of Clan Silver Dragon.'

Before anyone could even begin to look at the entrance to watch their grand entrance into this hall, Kahmmhi and her four Shadows suddenly materialized right in front of them, standing right beside Kyra. The four Shadows were in full combat armor, but Kahmmhi was in her silks.

Everyone gasped as they saw for the first time, in person, exactly how effective Clan chameleon was. Kyra knew that they'd be even more impressed if they realized that Kahmmhi wasn't in chameleon, and had been kept from being seen by simply being inside the overlapping fields that surrounded her Shadows.

Kahmmhi smiled, bowed formally, and took a seat near the Bajorans without saying a word. Her Shadows took up their positions near her, standing in a very relaxed manner that Kyra knew didn't mean a thing. They could move so fast that even other Alphas couldn't have attacked the Tahr Kahhni before they could react. She had seen Krohn step in front of a phaser before the beam could even hit Kahmmhi with her own eyes. Nothing else in the Alpha quadrant could possibly move that fast.

Kyra smiled. 'I have been asked to introduce the delegation from the Cardassians next. Ambassador Garak, Gul Morken, and Gul Derkur, representing the Cardassian Empire.'

Garak walked out with the two military officers behind him, greeting Kyra cordially before sitting next to Kahmmhi with the two officers near him. There was some polite applause, but everyone considered it a victory that there wasn't any commotion from any of the Bajorans who were present.

'High Chancellor Gowron of the Klingon Empire, Admiral Korg, and their delegation. Kerron and Malkir of the Klingon High Council, Admiral Mahk, and Ambassador Krang.'

Gowron and Korg walked out with half a dozen other Klingons behind them. They reached their positions on the stage, bowed, and sat down.

'Proconsul Kem'Tar of the Romulan Empire, with Senators Kal'Suhr, Vur'Tahn, and Mel'Vihm. General Kor'Vahn of the Romulan military, and General Bar'Shel, of the Tal'Shiar. Ambassador Mek'Vihm, and Admiral Karv'Tarek, their military liaison.'

The Romulans walked out, greeted her, and took their seats.

'Representing the Federation, ambassadors Masters, T'Prang, and Sanchez. Federation Council members Zor'von, Clark, and McNamara. Admirals Picard and Yamato.'

Kyra was greeted warmly by several of the members of the Federation delegation who knew her well from their previous meetings, and they were finally all seated.

'The first order of business is that the Klingons have asked permission to address this assembly.'

Kyra smiled, waited for Krang to come forward, and then took her seat.

'We thought that it was only right that we start out this meeting with some background information so that everyone present knows exactly where things stand right now. This may seem boring and complicated, but we will be as brief as possible. All of the official delegates will be able to access all of the details of the information that I am about to reveal so that they can study it in detail at their convenience.'

Everyone looked interested now, since this meant that there was going to be at least something of substance revealed.

'Since we first acquired the new ships that form the core of our current fleets, both the Klingon and Romulan empires have been working to upgrade them and make them as strong as possible with the new technology that we have been given access to. With the return of Voyager and her crew, and the ability to bring about even more improvements in those ships, we have been rebuilding the ships that were completed and completely overhauling all of the ships that hadn't been fully reworked yet.'

That wasn't really news to anyone, and didn't cause much of a response from anyone in the audience.

'While we were doing that, we were also working on overhauling our military and doing what we could to improve our combat capabilities with our ground forces. Once the Bajoran military began training with the Clan, we saw exactly what we needed to do in order to accomplish our goal, and we began incorporating Clan training and tactics into the regimen for our ground forces. We have also gotten rid of our energy weapons as a primary weapon for our ground troops. We are wearing the best armor that we can make and use, and our troops are now using rifles, pistols, and blades as their primary combat weapons. We are still working on trying to develop something that is equivalent to the Clan skate, and intend to use it against large groups of enemy forces.'

This information wasn't known widely, and created quite a stir among the majority of the audience. There were even some reactions visible among other delegates who were sitting on the stage. The changes that they were talking about were quite major, since they changed the abilities and performance of the ground troops in their commands significantly. Federation forces had already been having some problems adjusting to the much more aggressive style of warfare that the Klingons and Romulans employed normally, and now they had just learned that both of their allies had chosen to use even more aggressive tactics and training styles for their ground forces.

'Because we had some ships available that weren't being used for other purposes at the time, both the Romulan and Klingon forces began sending out cloaked ships to explore the area near our empires and determine if there were any threats or potential threats located near our space. We have found some previously unknown species, but most of them are fairly low tech, and are confined to their own planet or their own system by their lack of technology. Very few of the species that we have recently discovered have any type of space travel, and most are confined to sublight capabilities.'

This didn't surprise anyone very much, since checking out a potential threat near their borders would be expected of both the Romulans and the Klingons. And since they'd found nothing that was really surprising or that posed a serious threat, nobody was really concerned.

'Since the most recent upgrades began, we have been sending out scouts to explore and map all of the hyper connections to our systems. We don't have complete maps available yet, but we do know much more about what systems connect to our own systems by hyper, as well as their actual positions in real space. So far, we have avoided all contact with the inhabitants of any of those systems so that they don't know that we're there and don't know how we arrived in their system. Many of the inhabited systems that we have discovered are not part of the Alliance, and some of them contain civilizations that we have never heard of or encountered.'

Now everyone in the room was seriously interested in hearing exactly what Krang had to say.

'We've only been able to explore for a while, but we have been laying out a comsat network as we explored so that our ships were able to remain in contact with the empire and send back periodic reports and information about what they had found so that we could begin analyzing the data as quickly as possible. We are still working out spatial coordinates for some of the systems that we've recently discovered, but we already know that we've discovered at least some systems in each of the four quadrants of the galaxy. Many of them are uninhabited, but many others do have at least some type of life in the system. Unlike the systems that are near the Romulan and Klingon empires in real space, some of the systems that we've already discovered are already capable of faster than light flight and are exploring space around them. Several of them are part of interstellar empires, and most of them appear to be hostile to most of the newly discovered races that they encounter.'

This news was shocking to many of the representatives, since the Federation hadn't had any idea at all that either the Klingons or the Romulans were doing this type of exploration, much less that they were doing it together.

'Why wasn't the Federation Council informed of your activities?'

Krang looked over at the Federation table and saw that it was Councillor Clark who had asked the question.

'According to the terms of our Alliance, each member of the Alliance is responsible for reporting threats to their systems, threats to other Alliance systems, and newly discovered spacefaring races who are detected near our borders. None of the spacefaring races who are within several hundred light years of our borders are even capable of faster than light travel, so they posed no immediate threat to any of our systems.'

'But you're supposed to inform us if you send out a large percentage of your fleet so that we know what forces are available for defense purposes.'

'We only sent out warships to scout through hyper. Our main fleet is composed of the battleships and battle frigates. And while the warships are still much better and stronger than the warbirds or battlecruisers that we recently retired from service and gave to the Cardassians, there isn't enough of a difference in their combat capabilities to justify keeping all of them in our systems and not using some of them to explore and gather intelligence. We have many more warships available than we do scout ships, and they are much better qualified to complete this type of mission than any other ship in our fleet. Only hyper capable ships can possibly explore through hyper.'

Clark nodded. 'I see. Thank you for the explanation.'

Krang nodded, smiling at her politely. 'And if you're worried about how it cut into our resources or slowed down our upgrades on the battle frigates...'

Clark shook her head, looking almost embarrassed. 'No. I'm well aware that you could rebuild many warships with the resources that were required for just one battle frigate, and that both the Klingons and the Romulans have already managed to upgrade many more ships in their fleet than the Federation has been capable of doing so far.'

Krang nodded. 'If you would permit Admiral Karv'Tarek to speak, he can give you much more of the details of how our fleet operations have changed within the last few years.'

Krang sat, and Karv'Tarek stood. 'As you know, both the Klingon and Romulan Empires have cooperated very closely in working out the terms of our alliance, as well as changing our forces over so that we have military commands that are as similar as possible. That way our troops know how to work and fight together, and know what to expect whenever they perform combined missions.'

'With the arrival of Kahmmhi and Voyager, we have been able to make certain advancements in our technology, our combat capabilities, and our tactics, much sooner than we had originally believed possible once Kahmmhi left this system to explore the Delta quadrant. We have taken the StarFleet long range shuttlecraft that have been converted and used them as the basis for our common fighter. We have used the larger shuttles that were given to the Bajorans, based on the Clan HAT, and used them for our larger ships such as transports and combat troop deployment craft. Even without all of the capabilities of a Clan HAT, they make excellent troop support craft. And we have recently added a modified smaller design of the HAT that is set up for use as a PT boat to deliver AM mines to enemy targets.'

This information drew sudden, startled gasps from many of the people who were present, since nothing like this had even been contemplated by anyone in the Federation.

'We already have some of them in service, and the pilots have already learned how to fly them properly for combat conditions. While our version can only launch one or two AM mines at a time, it is completely safe as far as the deployment mechanisms, and works very well. We don't have the ships or resources to lay out vast minefields such as the Clan does, but we are capable of launching AM mines at individual targets with fairly high accuracy. We have already planned demonstrations of all of the new ships, tactics, and weapons systems so that you will all know and understand their capabilities. But those demonstrations are still several days away.'

'As for the Bajoran forces, they are as highly trained and just as capable as any forces that the Alliance has. They already have their own carriers, which, though smaller than our largest ships, are still very heavily armed and armored, and have a considerable force in their flight wings. Their troops are highly trained, very highly motivated, and use the same weapons and armor that we do. Admiral Nerys will give you the details of the overall size of the Bajoran forces that are available to defend this system after our presentation is completed.'

Karv'Tarek cleared his throat. 'We have been going over the details carefully, making sure that everything is accurate and up to date. As you all know, when the battle for this system was over, and the captured fleet was divided up amongst the members of the Alliance, the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Empire each received the same amount of ships for their new fleet. Six battleships, five troop transports, sixty battle frigates, two hundred and thirty warships, and eighty scouts.'

'As of this date, the Klingon fleet contains three partially upgraded battleships, two fully upgraded battleships, and one that is almost fully upgraded. All five troop transports have been partially upgraded, and are going to be fully upgraded as soon as possible. Twenty three battle frigates are partially upgraded, and another twenty one have been fully upgraded. One hundred warships have been partially upgraded, and another thirty four have been fully upgraded. Forty seven scouts have been partially upgraded.'

Karv'Tarek looked around, knowing that the Federation hadn't managed to do anywhere near as much, even though they had much more extensive shipyards and more resources available to them. 'The Romulan fleet contains similar numbers of partially upgraded ships, and similar numbers of fully upgraded ships. Both of our fleets have been using the fully upgraded warships to do thorough exploration and mapping of the hyperspace connections to our systems, and some of the scouts to do exploration and mapping of the regions around our outlying systems.'

'Now, as to our ships and their new weapons. While we have upgraded the lasers since Voyager's return, most of the rest of our upgrades have been to armor, stealth, and engines. But the major changes in our fleet ships has been our flight wings. We have gone over the ship designs with our experts and Clan experts, and are currently modifying the ships to allow much larger flight wings. Each battleship will have four hundred fighters, two hundred PT boats, and fifty transports once we get them to full capacity. We are currently building the small craft and training crews to pilot and serve on them so that we can achieve full capacity launches as soon as possible.'

Karv'Tarek smiled as he saw lots of stunned faces in the crowd. 'Our transports will each carry one hundred fighters and one hundred transports. Our battle frigates will each carry seventy five fighters, fifty PT boats, and twelve transports. Our warships will each carry twenty five fighters, twenty five PT boats, and four transports. And our scouts will each carry five fighters and five PT boats.'

'But you don't have all of these forces available right now.'

'No, Councillor Clark, we don't have all of these forces available right now. The ships that are stationed in this system do have all of their small craft on board already, but they're still not able to man them fully and execute a full scale launch.'

'OK. Thank you for the clarification.'

'And now, Admiral Nerys will inform you about the current state of the Bajoran Navy.'

'The Bajoran Navy currently consists of three ships. One salvage carrier, which carries twenty HATs that are configured for cargo, ten fighters, and ten PT boats. It also has five armored transports. The two assault carriers each carry fifty HATs, fifty fighters, and fifty PT boats, as well as five armored transports. At our base on Bajor itself, we currently have ninety PT boats, ninety fighters, fifteen armored transports, ten salvage design HATS, and twenty assault design HATS. That is also where all of our courier ships are stationed.'

'As of right now, we either have all of our ships fully crewed or have troops going through training to serve as their crews as soon as they are fully qualified.'

The Cardassians were listening intently, and realized that Bajor really did have a fleet that was fully capable of destroying their entire fleet on their own, even if they added in the fifty warbirds and fifty battlecruisers that they had just been given recently. They were very glad that they had accepted the nonaggression pact, and that the Bajorans had signed it as well. If the Bajorans had held a grudge against the Cardassians over their previous occupation of the Bajoran system, things would have been very bad for the Cardassian Empire. They had a very good idea of exactly how much damage just a few ships that powerful could cause to their fleet, especially when they had as many as several hundred fighters targeting the enemy ships. The Cardassians' new ships did have the best cloaking technology available, but it still wasn't stealth. And the one maxim that they knew very well from harsh experience was that you couldn't hit what you couldn't see. No one had seen the Clan small craft during the Dominion war.

Kyra smiled brightly, privately amused at the reactions that many of the visiting Federation delegates seemed to be having when they learned that Bajor was now not only independent of the Federation and the Alliance, but was also now capable of defending their own system without depending on the Alliance to do everything in space for them.

'Now that these meetings have been formally convened, and you have all been given the necessary background to understand the goals of this gathering, we will recess until tomorrow so that all of the members of the official delegations can go over the details before we begin formal meetings. Please feel free to mix, mingle, and socialize, and enjoy the hospitality of the compound that has been built for this occasion. You have all been assigned your own rooms, and we will do our best to provide anything that you need. You'll find that every guest room has its own synthesizer, and that there are a large number of programs available to choose from.'

Kyra sighed. 'We would like to remind all of you that there are a number of very unique food selections on all of the synthesizers, and most of them are of Clan origin. If you're not sure that you can tolerate certain foods, please scan them and have them checked to verify that they are safe for your species before ingesting much of them. For your own safety, of course. We wouldn't want any of you experiencing any allergic reactions during your visit, and we certainly wouldn't want you to end up accidentally poisoning yourselves.'

With that, Kyra led the delegation from Bajor off of the stage and the other delegations followed suit behind them. There was a lot of noise as discussions began immediately between the various observers in the crowd, as well as some very pointed commentary by a number of reporters who were present. They hadn't been prepared for this at all, so they had no idea how to explain everything that had just happened in a way that their audience would understand. And while they were scrambling to do this, they were also frantically trying to figure out the ramifications of the announcements that had just been made. There were a lot of things that were very newsworthy that they hadn't even expected to have to cover. In fact, some of the revelations were so totally unexpected that not even the most optimistic among them had even thought that they could end up covering a story of this magnitude and importance during this trip. After all, this was Bajor. A small backwater planet of no real importance whose only claim to fame was the wormhole in their system that led to the Delta quadrant and their recent involvement in the Dominion war. They hadn't even been accepted for provisional membership in the Federation before all of the recent events occurred.

'Thank you for meeting with us, Admiral Nerys. We know that you are very busy, especially during this series of conferences and meetings, but we were wondering if you could answer some questions about your system and their sudden change in status.'

Kyra nodded. 'I'll do what I can, but I'm not sure how much help I can be to you. I'm simply in command of the Bajoran Navy. Our Council members deal with running our system and handling all of the diplomatic affairs.'

'Most of our questions have at least some connection with the Bajoran military itself, and the rest are at least somewhat relative to that as well.'

'Then by all means, go ahead. I'll answer what I can, though you will understand, I hope, that there are some things that I either can't talk about or that are classified information.'

'Yes. That won't be any problem at all. First, how do the Bajorans feel about the sudden rebuilding of the Cardassian fleets by the Klingons and the Romulans?'

'I'm not sure how the politicians or the civilians view it. I know that there are still some people who harbor at least some ill feelings towards the Cardassians because of our interactions in the past. But the fleet that they have been given, while very large and powerful by many standards, isn't a threat to Bajor or our system. They have a nonaggression pact with both Bajor and the Alliance, and it is definitely in their best interests to honor that agreement. Personally, I'm very glad that the Alliance took the actions that they did.'

'And why is that?'

'The Cardassians who were in command of the Obsidian Order were the ones who were running the military when they invaded Bajor, and they sided with the Dominion. Their opposition is now in power, and the remnants of the Obsidian Order have been driven from Cardassian space or hunted down. They have either been killed or they've been imprisoned, depending on what the Cardassian courts decided was proper punishment for their crimes. Very few of them were exiled, since that would just give more recruits to those members of the Obsidian Order who fled after their defeat at DS9.'

Kyra smiled. 'With the increase in their fleet's size and power, they now have more than enough force to hunt down any ships that got away and end the threat posed by the Obsidian Order once and for all. And they now have the forces necessary to make sure that their systems remain free from invasion by external forces. The Cardassian Empire is a shield between the Alliance and the systems that lie on the other side of their empire, and they serve as an early warning system. They will alert us of the approach of any threats from outside their space.'

'It sounds almost like you're using them.'

'In a way, we are. But the Cardassians know that without the assistance that the Alliance has given them, they would still be between us and unknown forces beyond their territory, and they'd still have to fight against any expansion or invasion coming from that direction long before those forces reached Bajoran or Alliance space. So they are very grateful for the gift of the hundred ships that they've received so far. Their navy is larger, more powerful, and contains much more powerful ships than it ever has in Cardassian history.'

'And yet these ships still pose no real threat to the Alliance. What about Bajor itself?'

'We're protected by the Alliance picket fleet that is here to guard the wormhole and defend against threats from the Delta quadrant. But even if we weren't, we wouldn't be too worried. The ships that the Cardassians have are all modified ships. They added armor to make the armor stronger, and improved the shields by adding in more shield emitters. They have the best cloaking that was available before Kahmmhi returned and gave both Bajor and the Alliance stealth technology. They are very good, very strong ships that will do well against almost anything that they might be called upon to face in combat.'

'And yet you don't appear to be worried.'

'I don't think that the Cardassians have any intentions of ever trying to invade Bajor again. They got what they wanted the first time, and left because anything else that they could get wasn't worth the effort. Even if that wasn't the case, they are no match for the Bajoran Navy.'

'What? They have more than a hundred ships, and the hundred largest ships in their fleet are each as large and powerful as a Galaxy class starship.'

'The face of war has changed significantly in the past twenty years. A Galaxy class starship is, in fact, pretty much obsolete as a ship of the line. They are still perfectly capable of serving as support ships and performing many other duties, but they were never built as warships, and now they are so seriously outclassed that using them in warfare is tantamount to sending the crew on board to their deaths. Except for extreme situations that require some type of sacrifice or that are desperate, I'd consider anyone who ordered a ship of that type into combat to be committing murder of the crew and would suggest that they be tried for criminal conduct.'

'I don't understand. How could you say that when they are so powerful?'

'Right now, we have three types of engines on many of the warships. Each one has a purpose, and each one is designed to be used under particular circumstances. The warp engines allow the ships to travel from system to system rapidly. The impulse engines that a Galaxy class starship have are obsolete. Gravitic engines don't require fuel to function, and they are actually faster than full impulse on ships that have been modified to allow them to stand up to the stress of traveling at that speed. But only the newly built or upgraded ships even have hyper capability. While we can't do some of the things with them that the Clan can, our ships are capable of entering and exiting hyperspace at naturally occurring hyper points. That allows us to travel much faster than warp is capable of, with the trade-off being that we have to follow the hyper streams from one system to the next, and we can't determine where we're going until we've mapped the connections and know how to get from where we are to where we want to be.'

'OK, so there are differences in mobility. That doesn't make the ships obsolete.'

'They have almost no armor, and their best shielding can't compare to that of the larger and stronger ships that have been modified. Their weapons are much more limited in number, power, and range than even the carriers that the Bajoran Navy has. It doesn't take a lot to figure out who would win in a fight.'

'What do you mean?'

'Stealth is much better than the best cloaking, and while we can detect cloaked ships, they cannot detect any stealthed ships. And while their weapons are powerful, they can't do much to the shields and armor that are on the newer ships, and our own weapons have a range that is at least ten times that of the best weapons that are on the older ships.'

'There is actually that much of a difference in range and power?'

Kyra nodded. 'And not only are our ship's weapons that powerful, but we also have small craft that can destroy a Galaxy class ship by themselves.'

'Right. Um, what about the exploration of hyperspace?'

'We're not doing much of that right now, though I'm certain that the Klingons and Romulans are already making great headway in that respect. For right now, we're keeping our ships near our system and collecting all of the antimatter and other resources that our system needs to maintain our current standard of living. Once we have additional resources, we'll begin building more ships and expanding our fleet.'

'I've heard that the Bajorans are going to try to begin trading with the members of the Alliance. If we have access to the same things that you do, why would we need to trade with Bajor?'

'We can provide additional materials that you need during this time when you are still strapped for resources because of your need for rapid expansion of the fleet. And we can begin trading with other systems that we find, bringing back new, exotic, and rare items. We also have a large number of rare and unique foods and other useful items on Bajor. Pharmaceuticals, and other things. I'm sure that the Federation could use some of them.'

'That's all very well and good, but what of real value could you possibly produce that the Federation can't?'

Kyra smiled. 'Well, we can skim off some resources from our manufacturing and trade something that I'm fairly certain most people in the Federation don't have yet, but would like to have. And since the Federation has other things taking priority on their resources, they might want to consider trading with us so that they can speed up the process of satisfying the demand.'

'And what would that be, exactly?'

'Synthesizers. Right now, we can produce more than one thousand synthesizers a month over our projected needs. Within a year, we could improve that by at least a factor of ten. So, do you know anyone on any of the remote, technology starved worlds of the Federation that are just starting out who wouldn't like to have a synthesizer with its own alternative power sources so that they can survive, even if they run out of antimatter completely?'

The reporters looked at each other, none of them wanting to answer that question. Every colony world was starved for the most modern technology, and a safe, reliable synthesizer that could function on either wind or solar power well enough to keep individual colonists alive for centuries without wearing out was something that would be extremely valuable.

Kyra smiled. 'Yeah, I think that our trade delegation is going to be able to work out something that will benefit both of our societies.'

'And do you intend to trade items such as that to other cultures that you run into? How are you going to regulate your contact with other worlds so that you don't violate the Prime Directive?'

Kyra laughed softly. 'Um, I don't know if you've noticed or not, but the Federation is the only power in this sector that is limited by the Prime Directive. I'm not sure how the Klingons or Romulans dealt with that when you formed your Alliance, but we're not even part of your Alliance, and we aren't bound by the terms of it. While we don't intend to go spreading around unlimited technology to primitive cultures, we can trade certain things with them without destroying their culture or their technology.'

'Such as?'

'Spices, foods, drugs to treat various illnesses. We're not actually giving them the means to make the items for themselves, but we are trading them something of value that they already understand and know how to put to use. Just because they can't synthesize a particular drug doesn't mean that we can't synthesize it and then trade it to them. We could even purify and refine some of their current drugs and make them safer, more potent, or able to work better, without altering their world at all.'

'And what if they want to trade for weapons or better technology?'

Kyra shrugged. 'That would depend on the particular situation and the things that they were asking for. Our own weapons and armor aren't going to appear any different than most of the things that a much more primitive society is capable of making on its own.'

'But there is no reason to ever violate the Prime Directive. Think of the damage that you could do to their society and their natural development.'

'You know, I spent so much time dealing with the Federation that they almost had me brainwashed into believing all of that bullshit. But I had one discussion with Kahmmhi, and at the end of that discussion, there was no doubt in my mind that there are certain situations where we will arm any society that we find that is willing to fight to defend their planet and their system. It could be a futile gesture and a waste of resources, but we're willing to take that risk.'

'And what situations would actually support something that destructive to a society?'

'You do know that we are facing expansion by a number of different aggressive empires from the Gamma quadrant, as well as from a number of similarly hostile groups in the Delta quadrant.'

'Yes. Everyone knows that by now. What does that have to do with anything?'

'We may not be able to stick around and fight for them, but if we find a world that is in imminent danger of being overrun by one of those empires, it would actually help them and us if we armed those worlds that were willing to resist and fight against a common threat. Whether they win or lose, they will cause the enemy to lose at least some forces, and they will slow down the rate of expansion and give us more time to improve our own defenses and increase the size and power of our fleets.'

'And what of the poor people on those planets that you've condemned to death?'

Kyra looked directly at the reporter who had spoken. 'We arm those who wish to fight. We're not forcing them to fight. We're doing what we can to give them a fighting chance. And if they survive, not only do we gain time and breathing room, but we can return and try to help them improve their defenses so that they can survive against the next attack as well.'

'That sounds cold and heartless. You're doing things that you know are going to kill many of them just so that your own system has more time to prepare their own defenses.'

Kyra glared at the reporter. 'Our defense? The Alliance is using us and the Cardassians as a shield in this sector to keep from having external threats enter Alliance space undetected, and to give them more time to prepare for any threats, and you condemn us for doing the same thing? You consider our plan cold and heartless? You, with your high and lofty goals of the Prime Directive, who turn your backs on anyone who doesn't meet your standards for being technologically advanced enough to talk to you? You'd condemn entire systems to death, enslavement, or worse simply because you don't want to contaminate their cultures by giving them assistance, even if it was the only way to prevent the total elimination of their species, and yet you claim that you abhor genocide for any reason. If the Clan had thought the way that you do, you and everyone in the Federation would be fleeing or fighting a losing battle against the overwhelming forces of the Dominion right now. Think about that before you go passing judgment on anyone who doesn't worship your precious Prime Directive.' Kyra spat on the deck. 'You disgust me. This interview is over.'

Before anyone could object or react to the situation, shocking as it had been, they were ushered out of the admiral's presence by her security team. Many of the reporters believed that she had really crossed the line and gone beyond socially acceptable responses. But the majority of them actually believed that the admiral had handled herself very well, and that she had made it perfectly clear that Bajor wasn't going to be dictated to and told how to handle their own internal situations and trade with other independent groups simply because the Federation wanted to control the development of other societies that were discovered.

It didn't take long for news of what had happened to spread throughout the entire compound. The reactions to that news were mixed. The Klingons, Romulans, and Clan were impressed, and thought that Kyra had finally stood up for Bajor. The Cardassians were also impressed, and glad that they weren't facing Kyra as an enemy. The Federation response was highly mixed. Some thought that she had every right to the reactions that she had shown to the questioning, and that the reporter had crossed the line himself long before she had responded to his provocations. The majority were somewhere between supportive in principle and supportive, with at least some reservations. And then there were those who believed that Kyra should be reprimanded by her superiors so that she learned that personal opinions that controversial weren't to be expressed in public.

The Bajorans didn't know exactly how to respond. Privately, most of them supported Kyra wholeheartedly, while many of them were worried about maintaining the proper tone of relations between Bajor and the Alliance. When the Council called Kyra before them, she faced them without flinching.

'We believe that you could have been more diplomatic in your responses, admiral.'

'I'm not a diplomat. You put me in charge of our navy because I am a warrior, and I'm the best that we have, according to all of the training scores during our training with the Clan. If you want to replace me with some politician, then by all means do so. We are not part of the Federation, and they are not the entire Alliance. We have agreements with the Cardassians, the Klingons, and the Romulans as well. They treat us with respect. The Federation, or at least certain politicians and dignitaries within the Federation, still treat us as if we were miscreant children who can't be trusted to run our own affairs. They refused to help Bajor when Cardassia invaded, even refusing to try to negotiate diplomatically. We didn't ask them to fight the Cardassians for us, or to violate their laws or the Prime Directive. We aren't now, and never were, a primitive society during the time that we were in contact with the Federation, yet they treated us as if we were some backward barbs who needed them to guide us along the long, slow path of our normal growth and development. Yes, they were eventually going to grant us provisional membership in the Federation once we had rebuilt our society and regained our lost technology. Once we had improved our standard of living so that we weren't backward barbarians who lacked the resources to even have a normal lifestyle. Not that they kept the Cardassians from stripping our planet and our system of resources. The only reason that they even took over this system after the Cardassians left was because of the wormhole. They didn't want the Cardassians to control it.'

Kyra sighed. 'We are an independent system, and we are capable of standing on our own without the help of the Federation or the Alliance. While being on friendly terms with them is good for all of us, they have to fully understand that we are independent. We're no longer a puppet that they can control and manipulate whenever they want something from us. I'm here before you right now simply because the Federation objects to my opinion of their precious Prime Directive. Well, since we aren't a member of the Federation, we aren't bound by the Prime Directive. They are. So they should quit trying to violate it by forcing us to live by their rules.'

'The Federation has already made overtures to offer us full membership in the Federation, admiral.'

'If you do that, you'll be selling yourselves to them. We're independent. If we join the Federation, they will tax us and allocate our resources for the common good, and our standard of living, given to us by the Clan, will fall back toward what it was. If you wish to ally with them, demand to become a full partner in the Alliance, not a member of the Federation. At least then we'll retain our full independence and sovereignty.'

'And what if they don't wish to do that?'

'We don't need them as much as they need us, Remal. Within a year, we could increase our production of synthesizers enough to trade ten thousand synthesizers a month with the Federation, just as I told the reporters. As an independent system, they have to pay us for those, and they have to give us a fair price. As a member of the Federation, they can regulate the price and demand part of our production as taxes to support the fleet and the growth of the Federation. And if they take control of our fleet, why keep it here? They already have a picket fleet inside the system, and the ships in our navy would be put to much better use defending Earth and exploring hyperspace near that system. For the good of the Federation and the common security, of course.'

Remal nodded and smiled. 'Kahmmhi was right. You are just the person that we need to maintain the security of this system in this trying time. Our new navy needs traditions, and under your leadership, they'll get the best traditions that we can give them.'

'Sir, what should I say if they demand some type of response to the complaints that were formally lodged against me for my interview the other day?'

Remal smiled. 'Tell them that Bajor is independent, and that we don't have to obey their laws, customs, or wishes. They are the ones who are violating their Prime Directive when they try to force us to obey it, not us. And if the Federation has any problems with that, we can find someone else to trade with for the things that we have to offer.'

The other Council members nodded, agreeing with him completely.

'One other thing, admiral. Never back down from any politician when they ask for your opinion or what you think. You might not be popular, but we're counting on you to keep us alive.'

'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.'

After Kyra was gone, one of the female Councillors chuckled softly. 'You didn't get as graphic as we were afraid you might, Remal. Perhaps you are mellowing in your old age.'

'Don't get your hopes up, Renya. Believe me, if they do ask, her response won't be so nice as my own sounded. I know the admiral that well.'

Renya shrugged. 'If the Federation doesn't like it, they can go hide their heads in the sand. Those who choose that option will be replaced by those who are willing to fight soon enough.' She smiled. 'Kyra doesn't know it, but she may be doing more to help the Federation than they could ever have hoped. She's showing those who are willing to fight exactly who their opposition is.'

'That's not our problem. So, can we actually increase our surplus production capabilities that much within a year?'

'Actually, it's more like a twelve fold increase in production surplus. Twelve thousand a month by the end of the year.'

'And what can we get for that?'

Renya smiled. 'That depends on the Federation's negotiators. If they want to get uppity and try to use undue influence or threaten us, we'll just raise the price per unit and cut down on our estimates of how many we make for them.'

'And if they don't want to pay our price?'

Renya shrugged. 'That is why there are others to trade with. Including those who don't have access to such high tech levels. We can regulate what they can make with the synthesizers by simply limiting and restricting their programs. And by constructing them the way that the Clan showed us how to, they can't use AM on their own anyway. You can use a power source, but without an AM power source, you either have to use the solar panels, the wind generators, or tie it into a normal power grid like Quark did on DS9 when they gave him the first synthesizers.'

Remal nodded, thinking that it was a fairly simple way to regulate what those who got the technology could actually do with it. Between limiting the programs and limiting the capacity of the synthesizers with their power sources, it did provide a very good control mechanism to limit the chances of anyone abusing their capabilities and exceeding their intended purpose. They could even trade them to the Cardassians without allowing the Cardassians to misuse them or use them to improve things too rapidly within their own Empire.

'What about the AM containment units? Have we heard anything from Kahmmhi or the Clan about that?'

Renya shook her head. 'We don't have the tech to control it properly, and it could be used as a bomb if you screwed up the controls on the containment cells. The Clan will show us how to make some of the larger Clan power sources, but all of the personal and household synthesizers will be limited to the same type that they gave to the Federation and the Alliance before.'

'That's probably just as well. If they don't require large amounts of AM, anyone that we trade them to who doesn't have the ability to collect AM from hyper won't be trying to learn how to get into hyper just to get more AM and increase their productivity by several orders of magnitude.'

'If they're that desperate for more productivity, they can simply tie them into their power grid that runs off of an AM reactor and use it to capacity without worrying about running down the power reserves that the secondary power sources keep charged.' She smiled at his shocked look. 'That's one of our selling points for using them on remote worlds. If they have a reliable power grid, the units are still great insurance in case of any disaster or problems with their power sources, since they can operate independently if necessary. And if they get strapped for power, they can make the people use their units from their own power and save the power that they can generate for more important things than normal daily food and survival needs.'

'Good. Let me know how negotiations go, and make sure that we know as quickly as possible if we're going to have to increase our productivity significantly.'

'Yes, sir. You'll be the first to know.'

Kahmmhi had attended more meetings, formal functions, and parties in the past week than she had in her entire life, or at least it felt like it right now. The really bad thing was that she knew that the Bajorans were involved in more meetings than she was, and they all seemed to be really motivated and gung ho every time that she saw them.

'Well, Brynhe, what do we know so far?'

'Bajor is negotiating with the Alliance, mostly the Federation, to supply some of the synthesizers that they'll need for their more rapid expansion and improvement of the standard of living within the Federation itself. Remal seems to be pleased with the results of those negotiations so far. The Klingons and Romulans are both trying to keep up with their own expansion needs right now, and the Bajorans don't have a problem with that because they're going to be stretched for resources to keep up with the Federation's needs for the foreseeable future.'

'And the Cardassians?'

'The Klingons and Romulans are working together to help them improve their ships even further by adding in some power sources and lasers. It will increase their range, but it will still be limited, and weaker than anything that the Bajorans have. They can only improve the older ships so much with the materials that they have to work with. They are supplying the Cardassians with more duranium than they could produce on their own so that they can improve their armor as much as possible.'

Krohn smiled. 'It looks like they'll eventually have the Cardassians improved enough on their tech that they can begin constructing ships of their own that use the same tech and materials that the Alliance currently has access to. When that happens, the Cardassians will probably join the Alliance.'

'Good. That will make them all stronger, and give them a much better chance of survival in the long term.'

'The Bajorans are also trying to help the Cardassians put at least some synthesizers into their newer ships. That would free up the older replicators for their older and smaller ships, or for use on some of their larger military bases.'

'Has astro gone over the hyper maps that the Klingons and Romulans are building?'

'Yeah. They're exploring very rapidly, but they're avoiding any exposure to any of the systems. Some of the systems in their own spheres of influence don't even know that they've been there yet.'

'And what about their other exploration?'

'Like they said. No credible threats that are imminently dangerous. Some could become dangerous in time, but we're talking generations with their life expectancies. Several hundred years at the very least. Now, as to how long it could take for some of the empires in the Gamma quadrant to reach their borders...'

'Oh, yeah. That's going to be up in the air until it actually happens. Hell, several of them could discover the very basics about hyper on their own within the next century, if not sooner. With their resource bases and drive to expand, they could be here within a few decades of their initial discovery of hyperspace. With fleets powerful enough to hammer the piss out of what the Alliance can build in that time frame if they don't get off of their asses and take production of their defense fleets more seriously than they seem to take their current standard of living.'

Krohn shrugged. 'We gave them the tools, the knowledge, and the opportunity. What they do with it is up to them. We can't stay here and babysit them for the next few millennia.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Yeah, I know. So, what do we have to look forward to in the next few days?'

'A lot of the meetings are wrapping up. Even the Federation's best negotiators are starting to get the idea that they don't have anything more to offer us, and that we don't intend to give them even more advanced technology than they already have. And the experts are starting to convince their leaders that if they build the fleets that they need for survival, and concentrate a lot of their research efforts into gravitics, they can eventually build ships that are capable of doing microjumps in real space, and then they can begin developing the same hyper capabilities that we have.'

Krohn chuckled at Brynhe's comment. 'If they actually do that, they'll be able to use the tactics that we showed them were possible, and their combat effectiveness of all of their forces will increase dramatically. By at least one order of magnitude.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'If that doesn't motivate at least some of them, then nothing will. They either take the threat seriously, or someone from the Gamma quadrant is going to come here, kick their asses, take their technology, and put it to much better use than they did.'

She sighed, looking around at all of them. 'I will be SO glad when we can finally leave this system and head for the wormhole in the Delta quadrant. Dealing with all of these dignitaries and politicians is really beginning to get on my nerves.'

Krohn smiled as the other Shadows looked at him expectantly. They had all been able to sense that Kahmmhi was beginning to get really antsy and irritable lately, and they had all known the source of the problem. She took after her grandfather much more than she wanted to believe, and she was becoming very tightly wound after all of the formal functions that she'd been forced to deal with while they had been here.

'We can make sure that you don't have too many unwanted people approaching you during the formal goodbye celebration, if that is what you wish.'

Kahmmhi looked at him curiously. 'And how do you propose that we do that?'

Krohn laughed. 'That's the simplest thing of all. We just have Max's platoon stand around without using their chameleon and intimidate everyone. I'm sure that the Bajorans can make sure that everyone thinks that he might overreact if too many people approach you at any one time. Knowing their place in the hierarchy of things and allowing their superiors to spend time talking with you will limit the number of extraneous people who bother you during the party.'

Kahmmhi smiled, trying very hard not to laugh out loud. 'Krohn, you are a seriously devious bastard. I love it. Thank you. I might just survive this party after all.'

'No problem, Tahr Kahhni. We could use something to amuse ourselves, and this should definitely make the party much more entertaining from our point of view.'

Brynhe snorted. 'Not to mention making it much easier for us to do our job by not having to worry about a crowd of unknown people trying to be around you all of the time. Not that they're much of a threat, but I don't trust anyone that we don't know enough about to guarantee your safety.'

'Just another week, and we can all finally get moving. I really hate staying in one system all of the time, even if there aren't any Consortium bastards here who can pop out of nowhere without any warning and just blow us and the entire system to hell and back before we could do anything to stop them.'

'Old habits die hard, especially when you know that they're the only thing that keeps you and your Clan alive. But Kohl-garh has remained in a single system for extended periods of time before in order to carry out some specific objective.' Krohn smiled. 'Of course, I do understand your unease, since Kohl-garh did have enough forces available to handle any foreseeable attacks on his Clan.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'I'm not feeling threatened by anything that we've found in this place, even if we do only have a scout claw here. I'm just stressed.'

'Don't try to be so perfect. If they don't like you or how you behave normally, then screw them.'

'Jehryl! Don't say shit like that. You remind me of Lehr when you say things like that.'

Brynhe laughed. Lyhssyha snorted. 'Where do you think he learned it? Lehr was constantly spouting off like that while we were with Kohl-garh's bodyguard squad.'

'That explains how he got corrupted. So, how did the rest of you manage not to be corrupted by the chyrrhp that is Lehr?'

'Oh, we ignored him when we weren't laughing too hard. You had to learn to ignore a lot of what Lehr said when we were moving simply because it was too hard to even try to keep up with them if you were laughing. But poor Jehryl can laugh and run at the same time, and he could keep up without too much difficulty, so there wasn't really any incentive for him to learn to ignore Lehr's chyrrhp comments.'

Brynhe sighed. 'They do have a point, though, you know. Not only would having Max's platoon there keep down your stress levels, but you need to act normal and not try to do everything that you can just to please them and conform to their social customs. They have to remember that we're not only not part of their Federation or their Alliance, but we're not even human. They seem to keep forgetting that, and it's time that they learned that when they run into an alien culture, especially if it's more advanced than theirs is technologically, the members of that culture aren't necessarily going to act like they want them to and abide by their rules like good little barbs.'

'OK. We'll do the party your way. But you guys make sure that Max doesn't really hurt anyone. Scaring the piss out of some of the more obstinate ones who think that they have the right to demand attention is one thing, but breaking them isn't nice.'

'Right.' Jehryl snickered. 'Play nice with your toys, Max. If you break them, we won't let you get any new ones to play with.'

Brynhe smacked Jehryl on the back of the head. 'Stop being a chyrrhp, Jehryl. We all know that you did that just to mess with her.'

'No problems. But we all know that when he talks to Max, that's what Krohn is going to tell him.'

'You don't have to keep reminding the Tahr Kahhni of that fact. We're trying to get her to mellow out. Or did you forget that little factoid?'

Jehryl shrugged. 'She's mellow. She almost laughed out loud at least twice, and she probably would have if she wasn't so worried about irritating some of the more obtuse "dignitaries" and "functionaries" that came out to this system to see us off. Most of them don't seem to be very dignified to me, and you don't even want to get me started talking about how functional some of them actually are.'

Kahmmhi burst out laughing. 'Jehryl! Behave. They can't help it if their society still thinks that they need people like that to function. Once they start having to fight real wars and make real decisions much more quickly, they'll either learn to function, change their system of government, or die. We did what we could for them, and now it's up to them to make the best of the situation.'

Janeway looked around nervously. The only other people in the room were either Clan, very high ranking military members, and a few Federation diplomats. And then there was her group. All that was left of the Voyager's crew now that the others had long since gotten on with their lives. Herself, Chakotay, Tuvok, Seven, Paris, Kim, Torres, and the doctor. Nobody had been allowed to even examine his portable holoemitter after Kahmmhi had made it perfectly clear that the technology wasn't to be removed, disassembled, or studied, since he required it for his own use and the Clan considered him a sentient being.

'I've got a bad feeling about this.' Paris said it softly, but they knew that Kahmmhi and her Shadows had to have heard the comment.

'Tom.' B'elana sounded very irritated, so they knew that she was nervous as well.

Paris ignored Janeway's irritated look, as well as B'elana's whispered reprimand.

Chakotay simply nodded, silently agreeing with Tom's assessment of the situation.

Ambassador Masters stood and smiled. 'We would like to thank all of you for the invaluable services that you have provided to the Federation and the Alliance, especially these past few years while you were helping us all learn more about the new technology and how it functioned.'

Janeway nodded, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

'We think that it is best if all of you take some time off to rest, recuperate, and seriously consider what you would like to do once you are ready to resume your lives.'

'I don't understand, ambassador.'

'We are giving you six months to determine what you would like to do. It will not come off of your accrued shore leave or other leave, and you will receive full pay at your current ranks during that time. We know that you can be of great service to the Alliance, but that decision is yours to make.'

Janeway looked at the others. 'That is very generous, but we have already discussed this, and we know what we want to do. We're just not sure if we're going to be able to do it.'

Admiral Yamato stood. 'And what would you like to do if you were given the option, captain?'

'We wish to continue to serve together in space, and to serve aboard a ship. We believe that our experience and skills would be best put to use in space.'

Yamato smiled and nodded. 'We thought so as well. So, captain, if you would take your command crew and enjoy six months of liberty, we will have your new ship waiting for you when the six months are completed.'

'New ship, sir?'

'Yes. We've been working on some of the warships, which are about the size of the Voyager, and the Council has decided that the Federation needs to begin doing their own exploration of the space around us. Some of the smaller scout ships will be sent out to explore using warp, just as the other members of the Alliance have been doing for some years now. We will be using our warships to explore through hyper to map out as much of the galaxy as we can. But we also intend for the ships to stay inside systems long enough to study any cultures or civilizations that they discover, especially if they are technologically developed or capable of any space travel at all.'

'And we're not to make contact with any of the civilizations that we discover, correct?'

Yamato smiled wryly. 'We've had some discussions about that, captain, and in the interest of the survival of humanity and those races that aren't aggressive and determined to rule the entire galaxy, we have some new rules regarding that particular topic. Full details will be available to you when you return to duty, but suffice it to say that if a system is capable of becoming a trade partner or a potential ally against some of the known threats, the rules are going to be somewhat different than they used to be.'

Janeway nodded. 'Thank you, sir.'

'No, thank you, captain. We realize that if you hadn't discovered gravitics and hyperspace on your own, using technology that hadn't been given to us by the Clan, Kahmmhi would never have returned and helped us build the new, upgraded fleets, and we wouldn't have learned about your discoveries for another fifty or sixty years, if at all.'

'Yes, sir.' Janeway wasn't sure exactly how to respond, so she fell back on her training.

'And we do have new regulations regarding family members being on board our ships as well. We know that we're sending out warships, but if the parents don't think that the danger is too great, the children can remain on the ship and be raised and educated there. Our new ships tend to have more room for personal quarters, as well as a lot more life support capacity. I'm sure that Lieutenant Commander Paris and Lieutenant Commander Torres will feel much better about being able to have their children with them once they finally start their family.'

Paris smiled broadly. 'Thank YOU, sir.'

Kahmmhi stood and smiled. 'Congratulations on your new command, captain.'

Chakotay looked thoughtful. 'Uh, sir, what is the name of our new ship?'

Yamato chuckled softly. 'The Argos, Commander. We thought that it was only fitting after your return from your previous journey.'

Nobody knew what to say in response to that statement, so they didn't even bother trying to respond. They were just happy that they got to remain together and that they would be able to have a ship and a mission. This was definitely one mission that they were qualified for after their long trek through the Delta quadrant.

'Now, if there is nothing further, I believe that Kahmmhi has reserved a small room at Quark's for all of you to celebrate in and spend some time together to say your goodbyes in a more private setting. Just in case you don't get a chance to do so before they leave.'

'Thank you, Admiral.'

As they left the room, Yamato turned to Masters. 'We really should have given them one of the larger ships, except we really can't spare any of them for that type of mission, and we really do need them to help train more of our personnel. They're going to see a lot of turnover on that ship during the next decade or two, and I don't think that it's going to go unnoticed, either.'

Masters shrugged. 'It's not like we're sending them out as a training ship with a crew of cadets. They'll have their share of the young cadets and ensigns along for the ride, but they'll have even more seasoned officers than many ships will as well. We really need to get the training standards up, and until we have the time to do that properly...'

Yamato nodded. 'We train them the old fashioned way, and hope that we don't lose too many of them in combat before they can learn how to survive and do the job properly.'

'How long do you think we have before we'll actually have to fight any of the potential enemies that we've learned about?'

'Long enough that most of us will be old or dead before that happens. If we're lucky. But even if we aren't lucky, the next generation will be fully trained by then, and they'll have the experience and training to help them deal with what they have to face.'

Masters nodded. 'I certainly hope so, admiral. I certainly hope so.'

Kyra looked around the room, smiling as she saw that many of the civilians who were present seemed to be much more subdued and quiet than they normally would be at some type of party this large. She attributed that to them being intimidated by the fact that there were about a hundred large figures in black armor visible around the walls of the large, open air terrace that was being used for this formal party. Almost everyone was here already. Everyone except for the guest of honor and her entourage.

There was a commotion near the entrance, and the room became hushed as everyone turned expectantly. The doorman turned and announced in a loud voice, 'Tahr Kahhni Kahmmhi and her entourage.'

Kyra almost laughed as Max, his wife, and the first squad of his Raider platoon entered the room ahead of Kahmmhi and her four Shadows. They were in full combat armor and had full combat loads, including their rifles. Fleur was carrying her sniper rifle instead of the standard Clan rifle, and it looked huge against her small body.

As they stepped aside and everyone could see Kahmmhi, Kyra gasped. Kahmmhi was wearing her favorite dress. Unfortunately, the dress was the same one that she had removed during her duel with the Romulan captain during her first visit to DS9, and Kyra couldn't help but remember seeing her standing there, naked and covered with the dead Romulan's blood, as her Shadows cleaned her and helped her put that dress back on.

Remal Sintar nudged her gently. 'Admiral, we are following Clan custom here, at least among the Bajorans.'

Kyra nodded sheepishly, then went forward and greeted Kahmmhi warmly. 'Tahr Kahhni, we are pleased to welcome you to this celebration, though I am personally very sorry for the occasion.' Kyra smiled. 'I'm really going to miss you, you know.'

Kahmmhi smiled and hugged Kyra. As they hugged, she whispered softly, 'Don't worry, and don't back down when you know that you're right. Especially not from a fight.'

Kyra nodded. 'Don't worry. There are some of us who have taken our training to heart, and we intend to win or go down fighting to the very last.'

'Just don't get so caught up in the fight that you lose track of your other option when the fight is clearly one that you can't possibly win.'

'Yeah. We save as many civilians as we can and we go Clan on their asses. Once we have our fleet built up, we come back and show them why you don't mess with us.'

Remal smiled politely, realizing that Kyra and those like her truly did represent the only chance that the entire Bajoran race had for a safe future. They'd learned their lessons the hard way fighting the Cardassians, and now they would take that knowledge and whatever they'd learned from the Clan and make sure that the next would be conqueror to come along would find that they weren't going to simply roll over and allow anyone to take over their system and their planet without a fight.

'Remal. How did the trade talks go?'

'Very well. Thank you for asking. We did much better than we had originally expected, and our system will benefit from it for a very long time to come.'

'I'm very glad to hear that. I hope that your system becomes very prosperous with your access to new markets for your trade goods. I'm sure that between hyperspace and the wormhole, you should be able to build some merchant ships to take advantage of the opportunity.'

Remal nodded. 'We can build some ships, though we may have to give them some escorts at first. Until we are more aware of the potential dangers in the area and know how to avoid being attacked or having pirates steal our ships and cargos.'

'Good luck with that.'

Kahmmhi made her way slowly down the receiving line that had formed. The line, while it appeared to be very long, was actually composed only of those who were actually important delegates or representatives. All of the rest were left hanging around on the edges, watching from a respectful distance.

It didn't actually take that long for Kahmmhi to make her way to the end of the line, and then everyone began mingling and talking in small groups. There were still minor details to work out concerning many of the deals, treaties, or agreements that had been made, and still some technical details to work out concerning how to put the newly acquired technology and newly rebuilt ships to the most beneficial use for each of the individual members of the Alliance.

Almost everyone from the Federation was surprised to see Gul Derkur and Gul Morken engrossed in a very lengthy discussion with Kyra and Remal. They seemed to be talking intently, but they were clearly getting along very well and were working out some details on something that was very complicated. Only those in charge of the various Alliance groups knew exactly how much the two groups had in common, and how much they were depending on each other now that there was no longer any risk of aggression between them. They were neighbors in space, and the Cardassians were the buffer against hostile forces expanding into this region of space toward the Alliance territories. The Bajorans were now the ones with the technology and ability to help support the much more numerous ships of the Cardassian fleet. Both sides benefited, and by doing so, they developed more trust and reliance upon one another.

'If you could send some of your HATs to our system, we would be very glad to have them explore and see if there are any hyper points inside our main system. Once we know that it's secure, or that the routes leading to it have been explored, we would be willing to have them do the same in the other Cardassian systems.'

'I'm not sure that we could send HATs right away. Perhaps after we built more of them so that we do have enough trained crews and enough of them to insure the security of the system...'

'We don't have to send the HATs that are used for security, Remal. For something like this, the courier ships could actually do the work just as well, and they're set up much better for that type of long range exploration than the HATs are. Our troops CAN operate like Clan troops do, but they definitely don't WANT to do long term trips wearing armor all of the time in an enclosed ship. The cabins on our courier ships would make things much better for the crews.'

Derkur nodded. 'Those ships are fully capable, so that shouldn't be a problem. We definitely don't want them to fight, and they would be better off than the other ships because the crew won't want to fight while they are at such a disadvantage.' He paused. 'How many of them can you send to do the exploration?'

'We have ten courier ships right now, but we're not using them at the moment. What do you think, admiral?'

'I'd say that we could send six of them easily enough. That would leave four of them here for us to use once we begin doing trading or contacts with any other systems. As we get more built, we could rotate out the craft so that the crews get some down time. And if we get enough crews and pilots trained, we could even replace them with pairs or small groups of PT boats. I'd feel much better about it if we kept our exploration vessels traveling at least in pairs so that we'd know that if there was a problem with one ship, they could always tow it back or even leave the ship and bring back the crew safely.'

'That sounds like a very good idea. We don't know what we could run into, and two ships are definitely better than one, even if it does mean that it takes a bit longer to actually explore the hyperspace connections.'

'That only leaves us with the problem of getting the courier ships to your system. They have gravitics and hyper capability, but none of the ships in our fleet are warp capable.'

Morken nodded. 'We have enough room in our cargo bays for us to carry six of them back without any real problem. That will let them save all of their resources for use once they reach our system, and they can always return to Cardassia and land to replenish their resources and allow the crews to get off of the ship and recover from their missions.'

Kyra nodded. 'That works. We might want to build at least one carrier that is warp capable so that we don't run into this problem in the future, and we might want to see about altering some of the courier ships that we build to install warp drives, even if we have to enlarge them somewhat.'

Remal nodded. 'I'll have our experts look over the plans that the Clan and Voyager's experts gave to us and see what we can do. And if we're really going to use them as scouts like this, or recon craft, we should see about modifying some of the PT boats that we're going to make to allow us to increase our level of exploration through hyper.'

'I'll talk to Kahmmhi and ask how different the systems are on their recon craft so that we have some idea of how we should modify them for that purpose, and I'll get all of the details to you as soon as we have them.'

'We're supposed to leave within just a few days. Will that be a problem?'

Kyra shook her head. 'Not at all. We have the crews to man the craft, and they can be aboard your ships within just a few hours after receiving their orders.'

'Good. Just let us know when they're launching, and we'll be ready to receive them.'

Across the room, another group was intently involved in a discussion of their own. 'You're sure that they can actually meet the production schedules that we need?'

'One thousand units a month right now. Next year, that will go up to five thousand household units and one thousand larger units per month. I've seen the data, and they can do it.'

'So how do we intend to use this, or have we managed to work out the details of that already?'

'We send a ship here to collect the goods each month. For now, they're accepting Federation credits for most of the order, but they will want to slowly increase the amount of trade goods over time so that they have things that they can use for trading with other potential customers.'

'So that will keep them from selling or trading their synthesizers with other groups?'

'No. They are still going ahead with a similar deal with the Cardassians, but so far it's limited to helping them replace the replicators with synthesizers in the ships that the Romulans and Klingons gave them. We think that as the Cardassians recover and their economy improves, they will eventually begin trying to emulate what the Bajorans have done with their planet. To whatever extent their technology is capable of doing that.'

'They may have some problems with getting the resources together to do all of the work, and even more problems with coming up with all of the materials that they'd need to build things of that quality, but they will eventually be able to overcome those limitations with the help of the Bajorans, even if they don't get access to hyper and almost limitless amounts of antimatter to work with.'

'How much production can the Bajorans possibly maintain?'

'A lot more for the size of their system and their population than we can.'

'How is that possible?'

'First of all, the Clan has already helped them rebuild their entire planet, their infrastructure, and their private dwellings. They have a higher standard of living than they've ever had before, and almost all of their power and energy requirements are already being met without even relying on ANY of the antimatter that they are able to collect from hyperspace. The majority of their population already have synthesizers to use for all of their personal needs, and almost all of them operate independently of any outside power sources. Since the Bajorans are used to having much less than they currently do, they are willing to give up almost all of the additional benefits that their new technology can provide to them. For the short term. They're sure that they will come out ahead in the long term.'

'I wonder how well we could do something like that, and what it would take for the citizens of the Federation to do the same thing.'

Several of the nearby officials began laughing softly. 'That will never happen. They'd have to be willing to accept a lower standard of living for the majority of the Federation for at least ten or twenty years in order to free up the resources for us to do something like that. And we all know from history that the populated planets will demand that they get the best of everything, while the outlying planets and those who are developing new worlds on the frontiers are forced to get by on whatever they can afford to have shipped out to them.'

'Perhaps we really need to look into fixing that problem with our current system. I've seen the studies that were done by the group that talked with Kahmmhi about how to change things around. It really would be a much better use of our resources if we brought hundreds of colony worlds the best technology first and let them trade their excess production capabilities for their other needs. It supports the growth of the colonies and gives the central, more populous worlds a source of production as well. Overall, the production levels go up much more quickly, the colonies grow much more quickly, and everyone benefits.'

'If you truly believe that way, then you should remember to vote to support that particular initiative during the next session of the Council. There are already several proposals to put that to a vote as soon as we get back and reconvene the Council.'

'If that's what it takes, I will. We need to keep up with the other members of the Alliance or they could end up dissolving the Alliance because we aren't meeting our obligations according to the terms of our treaties.'

'You're absolutely right. We don't want them to think that we're the weakest link. If they think that we're not even really trying to keep pulling our weight, and that we're just hindering their efforts, they'd have every right to leave us on our own and do what they could to improve their own fleets even faster. And if they got rid of us because we weren't willing to do what was necessary to survive, they might consider replacing us with the Bajorans and the Cardassians. While they might require some help at first, they know that both of those groups are totally dedicated to doing whatever it takes for their people to survive.'

That thought bothered the others much more than they wanted to admit, and provided them with incentive to do what they could to keep that from happening. If sacrifices had to be made in the short term to make sure that their civilization survived in the long term, then so be it.

Kahmmhi tried to ignore some of the snickering that she could barely hear as her Shadows watched some of the minor functionaries try to work up the nerve to approach her. So far, at least three had already worked up their courage, only to run into Max. Even Fleur was keeping a straight face as he would step forward aggressively, glare at them, and ask what business they had with the Tahr Kahhni. With his brusqueness and huge presence, only one hadn't stopped and looked around the room at all of the figures in Clan armor before simply retreating as quickly as possible. The third hadn't even bothered to look around. She had simply blushed, fumbled for something to say, and then left. Kahmmhi had felt bad when she realized that the young female had left the room and still hadn't returned to the party half an hour later.

'Brynhe, can you find out what happened to that girl?'

'Are you sure?'

Kahmmhi smiled as she realized that Brynhe hadn't even asked WHICH girl she was referring to. 'Yes, Brynhe. We can always meet with her somewhere else AFTER this ends.'

'Dog and pony shows will go on forever, especially if the guest of honor doesn't have the good sense to leave as soon as possible.'

'Krohn.'

'Blame your grandfather. Lehr had nothing to do with the origin of THAT comment.'

'Never mind.' Kahmmhi sighed deeply, remembering hearing her grandfather say exactly the same thing when she was still a young girl. They were at a conclave with several other Clans, and there were a number of young Clan females who were vying for his attention in a desperate bid to join his household. Even Lish had thought that some of the girls were acting like wanton sluts in heat. The surprising thing was that seeing them acting like that hadn't affected Lish at all like anyone had expected. Instead of getting turned turned on, she had actually felt sick because it revolted and disgusted her. When Kahmmhi had asked her why she was reacting like that, Lish had told her that it was because they weren't even really horny. They were all excited by the idea of being near Kohl-garh, but none of them were actually dripping or wanting him. It was all just the fantasy of being a wife of Kohl-garh. Kahmmhi hadn't understood the difference very well then, but she did now. She couldn't help wondering how her grandmother was doing, and if she was getting enough sex to keep her satisfied.

'You're thinking again, Tahr Kahhni. Anything important?'

Kahmmhi shook her head to clear her thoughts, blushing slightly. 'Not really. Just remembering what Lish told me about why seeing the girls panting after Kohl-garh disgusted her, and wondering if she was getting enough sex to keep her satisfied.'

Brynhe shook her head. 'Lish is never satisfied sexually for very long. But she is content, and she does get to have all of the babies that she wants, so she'll be just fine.'

'Yeah. Grandpa doesn't spoil her too badly, and he does keep her in line so that she doesn't make life totally unbearable for the Charkal slaves in the household. Poor Violet would never survive if they didn't keep Lish under some type of control.'

'Yes. Poor Violet. She can't think at all most of the time, but when she's lucid enough to talk coherently, she's the happiest Charkal slave in the universe.'

Krohn scowled. 'They have their own version of Charkal sluts here. What they really need is Assault Marines in large numbers. Most of their potential enemies wouldn't have much use for a slut. Or at least not for one who was humanoid and soft.'

Jehryl nodded, chuckling softly. 'All of our recon data suggests that they only use their sluts for breeding up more warriors. The common theme among the aggressive empires that we found in the Gamma quadrant is that they think that quantity is better than quality when it comes to warriors, though they do make sure that they retain quality as well as quantity when they build the ships for their fleets.'

'Fortunately, I think that the Federation has learned that lesson, and that they're not likely to forget it any time soon.'

'We can hope.'

'Krohn, you are always such a pessimist.'

Krohn smiled, shaking his head sadly. 'Unfortunately, Kahm, I'm only being realistic. Lehr was often dark and very pessimistic, while Kohrrhi tried to see the potential in every situation. Kohl-garh could see much more potential, yet he also saw that things were often going to get even worse than the worst that Lehr could possibly predict.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'If you see the best and the worst that can happen, and you do your best to direct things so that you get something in between, you're much more likely to succeed than you are if you try to achieve the very best results possible. That is reality.'

Brynhe smiled. 'And yet, time after time, Kohl-garh managed to achieve even more than the best that anyone could foresee at the start of the conflict.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'We'll stay another hour and mingle a bit. That should give them time to find the girl and bring her to my shuttle for a more private conversation.'

'Yes, Tahr Kahhni.'

Jessica looked around her with a wide-eyed expression on her face. She knew that she shouldn't gawk, but she couldn't help feeling awed and nervous. There was a sound behind her, and she turned around and gasped as she saw figures stepping through the stealth field and suddenly appearing inside the shuttle. When she saw the tiny woman in silks, she almost fainted.

'You would be the young lady that my brother scared so badly that she left the party. My apologies. He didn't mean to be so intimidating.'

'Yes, I did.'

There was a smacking sound that was very solid. 'Max! Behave yourself, and don't scare the poor girl again.'

'Yes, Fleur.' Max was still chuckling as he walked off toward the back of the shuttle to check on the rest of his platoon.

'May I ask your name?'

'Um, Jessica, ma'am. Um, I mean, Tahr Kahhni.' The girl looked nervous and embarrassed.

'How old are you, girl?'

Jessica looked at the small man standing to the right of Kahmmhi. 'Sixteen, sir.'

'I'm curious. Why did you approach me if you were so scared? You already knew that Max was going to ask what your business was.'

'I really just wanted to meet you. I know that it's something stupid, and that it's immature, but my parents aren't really all that important or influential, and while I may get into StarFleet, I may not be smart enough to serve on the fleet.'

'And is that so important?'

The girl looked stunned. 'Of course. We really do need to expand our military so that we can protect our people from the dangers of outside forces that are expanding in our direction. They will get here eventually, and it will be up to our fleet to stop them.'

'You don't think that you're smart enough to be in StarFleet and serve on the fleet ships. How are you at physical tasks?' Brynhe smiled as she asked the question, hoping to make the girl feel more at ease.

'I'm strong for my size, and I am very athletic. I always did well in all of my martial arts classes and competitions, ma'am.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Max, one kwyll for a female my size.'

She turned and looked at the girl. 'If you really want to defend your people, do your best at whatever you can do to support their current expansion and technological growth. But, if you are interested, I will tell you a secret.'

The girl leaned forward, anxious and eager, nodding as she stared at Kahmmhi breathlessly, her eyes wide and trusting. 'Yes, Tahr Kahhni.'

'The Alliance is going to need a lot more ground troops than anything else. They serve as assault troops, as defense troops on your new small craft that your carriers have, and as defense forces for the planets that need them. So, if you don't think that you can do a fleet job, you can try to become a pilot, a crew member for small craft, or even one of the new Assault Marines that they will be using for planetary and space warfare.'

'Really?'

'Yes. I'm not sure how the Federation has their training programs set up right now, but they are going to be training a LOT of Assault Marines for their new fleet and the support positions. If you really are strong, athletic, and able to handle violence and aggression, then that might be just the thing for you.'

'Thank you, Tahr Kahhni.'

Max came over and handed Kahmmhi a small black object. Jessica stared at it in awe as she watched Kahmmhi draw the small knife from the sheath and saw that the blade was the same soul sucking black as the handle and the case were.

Kahmmhi smiled, realizing that the blade was perfectly balanced. She put the blade back into the sheath, and then extended it toward Jessica. 'Please, accept this gift. No matter what you do, or what you become as you live your life, remember that while things may seem so hard that they appear to be insurmountable, there are very few things in the universe that can ever stand up to the kwyll. If you keep chipping away at a problem with it, eventually the problem will crumble and you will overcome it.'

Jessica gasped and almost fainted. 'For me? I couldn't possibly accept a gift like that. It's much too valuable. And I don't have anything that I could give you in return.'

'Then don't worry about it. Consider this token our way of showing you an ancient Clan custom. Even at the very beginning of our history, my grandfather gave what weapons he could afford to all of his warriors, and since that time, every warrior who enters training is given the best weapons and armor that his Clan can afford so that he can use them to fight the enemy and defend his Clan.'

'But I'm not Clan, and I'm not even a warrior.'

'None of us is a warrior when we first take up the blade. But you can be an example to those around you, and you can do your best to become a warrior to defend your own people.'

'But what if I'm not good enough, or strong enough? What if I can't become a warrior?'

'Even in the Clans, not everyone can become a warrior. My grandmother's sister, mother to another one of my father's wives, can't ever fight. Yet even she supports our Clan, our war, and our warriors in the ways that she can. Even she never questions the need to defend ourselves from our enemies, nor or need to destroy those who attack our Clan and try to kill us. In fact, she demands that the warriors do their very best to kill everyone who threatens her children and those of the other mothers in the Clan.'

'I understand. I think.'

Krohn smiled. 'Even if you can't ever fight your enemy, you can fight to overcome those who stand in the way of preparing your warriors to defend your people to the best of their abilities. Make sure that everyone realizes the dangers that they face. Make sure that everyone realizes that a little sacrifice, giving up some little bit of luxury or other unnecessary resources, allows them to be used to prepare better defenses against those who would threaten you. Make sure that the resources that you need to make your warriors capable of doing their job properly are given to them early enough that it will make a difference. Change the way that your people think about warfare and peace, and you can change the galaxy. Even small changes now could have major effects in the future. Everyone has the potential to change the universe, but few are brave enough to face that challenge and give it their all.'

'No one person can change the course of the future, or affect an entire galaxy, much less the universe.'

Krohn smiled, darting his eyes to Kahmmhi before fixing Jessica in his intense gaze. 'Kohl-garh has changed the face of our universe. Without him, none of the Clans would have survived. His race would have been totally destroyed forever. And the Graks and the rest of the Consortium would still be expanding their empire through five entire galaxies. Yet he started the Clans, declared war on the Consortium with only a few thousand warriors and a handful of small ships, and began showing us all new ways of fighting. Now there are about fifty Clans, and the Consortium is fighting a defensive war as they try to contain us all inside one galaxy so that the others have a chance to get away, hide, or find a way to stop us and turn the tide of our war against them.'

'He's not human.'

'And what of Kahmmhi?'

Jessica looked confused. 'I don't understand.'

'She has already changed the face of your galaxy with her actions, both here and in the Delta quadrant. She is just one person. Leading a small fleet of ships. With limited resources available to her.'

Jessica looked at Kahmmhi with an expression that was almost one of reverence. 'Yes, she has. Thank you. That is one of the reasons that I approached you. I wanted to thank you for making everything safer and better for everyone in the Federation.'

Kahmmhi put the kwyll in the girl's hand, smiling as she saw the surprised expression when the girl realized exactly how dense the material was when she felt its weight in her hand. 'Then let this remind you that you have the power to change things if you believe in yourself, if you don't stop trying to change things no matter how hard the obstacles that you encounter are, and that if something is truly worth defending, it is worth fighting for. And, if necessary, it's worth dying for. Just remember the first rule of Clan warfare.'

'What's that?'

'We train you to fight so that you can kill to defend your Clan. If dying is necessary, so be it. But if there's any choice at all about who dies, make sure that you give the enemy every opportunity to die defending his beliefs so that you can live to kill even more of the enemy in order to defend your beliefs.'

Jessica smiled, then nodded. 'I will remember that. I promise.'

'Max, have some escorts take her back to her room to make sure that she arrives safely. And make sure that they explain to her parents and anyone in charge that the kwyll is a personal gift from me to her.'

'Yes, Tahr Kahhni. Fleur! First squad is with us.'

'Thank you, Tahr Kahhni.'

Max led Jessica off toward her room at the center. After she was gone, Kahmmhi sighed. 'She's so young, but her entire life will be different from the very start.'

Krohn smiled, shrugging lightly. 'She was still a child when we were here the first time, and her entire life was going to be changed by the Dominion war, one way or another. From her point of view, things probably changed for the better. But this is the only life that she's ever known. You have to remember that they lead very short lives, and that for her, a generation is just a few decades at most. And each generation remembers how their lives were, but it's different for each generation.'

'I suppose that you're right. It's just so hard to think in their terms. I can't imagine living my entire life in just a few centuries at most.'

'For them, living as long as we do is just as alien a concept. Their way is normal, and they couldn't imagine having a lifespan that is measured in millennia.'

The conversation turned to Clan matters, and they passed the time talking as they waited for Max and Fleur to return. When they finally returned, more than an hour had passed.

'What took so long?'

'The girl and her parents were quartered in the outside corner of the complex. And when we finally got there, her parents were worried about what had happened to her at first. Then they were freaked out when they saw the gift that you gave the girl. I finally let Fleur handle them so that we could get out of there sometime tonight. They seemed to be determined to do everything that they could think of to thank us for this unprecedented honor and to try to repay you by coming up with SOMETHING to give you that was of commensurate value.'

'So, how did you handle that?'

Fleur smiled. 'I simply told them that our customs were very different from their own, and that the knife was a gift to the girl to remind her of what you had talked about. Giving a gift in return would not be appropriate because weapons are given to warriors so that they can be put to use. A gift such as that isn't really a gift, but more of a show of respect and honor for the potential that we see in the candidate.'

Brynhe smiled. 'That satisfied them?'

'Oh, yeah. They thanked us profusely for telling them so that they didn't lose face or upset our normal customs or offend us by trying to give you something to acknowledge the gift.'

'Thanks. I'd hate to think that the girl and her family had to struggle to get everything that they needed simply because they were trying to repay me for some gift. It's only a small combat knife.'

Max chuckled. 'Kwyll is very rare and precious here, and you know it. Even with all of the access to hyper and the vast amounts of antimatter that will allow them to use, nobody in the Alliance will be making almost anything out of kwyll, even with our synthesizers. They'd have to go through two or three long, drawn out, sequential processes to make it, and each of them is highly energy intensive and very complicated. The sheer amount of time and resources that it would take would be counterproductive to their current goal of expanding their fleets, improving their combat capabilities, and improving the overall standard of living for the citizens on all of the planets throughout the Alliance.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'For us, it took a bit of energy and five minutes with a synthesizer. The gift isn't the actual objective. We've fought alongside them, helped them survive when total defeat was almost inevitable, trained them to fight in different ways that are more effective, given them improved small arms, helped them rebuild and upgrade their fleets and their ships, and given them new ways to move around the universe more safely than they can using warp travel. Yes, they'll continue to use warp in most of their ships simply because there are too many systems that they don't have access to via hyper.'

Kahmmhi sighed, looking at Max intently. 'But we've sown the seeds of change for their cultures. They have already helped the Cardassians, former enemies, rebuild and improve their fleets. The Cardassians are not only getting along with the Alliance, who gave them better ships than any that they've ever had, but they've begun to trade and work with the Bajorans. We've trained Klingons, Romulans, Bajorans, and Federation troops so that they know how to use the new ships and weapons, trained their ground forces so that they know how to use their new small arms, and taught them all new ways of thinking about both warfare and how to defend their societies from aggression and expansion from outside forces. It's up to them to determine how well those seeds do, and what path their cultures actually take. Whatever the outcome, we won't be here to see it.'

'And what happens if we can't get the wormhole to work for us?'

'We'll stay in the Delta quadrant and explore, looking for other cultures to study while we wait for the next cycle. And if there isn't any change after three or four cycles at most, we'll try to find another way to get back to where we came from. In the meantime, we can always find someone to either trade with, study, or fight because they are a threat to humanity.'

Max nodded and smiled. 'Good. Just so long as you have some sort of a plan, we won't get too bored.'

Fleur smiled. 'So, let's get back to the Rolling Thunder. Now that this is finally finished here, we can prepare to get underway.'

Kahmmhi nodded, and the orders were passed to the pilot. They would still have to remain here for just a few more days, but nothing major should occur, and they should be able to handle everything that came up over the comm. Just a few more days, and they would finally enter the Delta quadrant and return to the wormhole that had brought them here in the first place.

During the next few days, Kahmmhi received a few final messages from various individuals. She also spent some time having dinner at Quark's with a few of her friends who were in the system. At the end of her last dinner there, Quark came over to her table.

'You're leaving again?'

'Yes, Quark. Hopefully, we'll find our way back to where we came from and we'll finally be able to get back to our Clan.'

'I'm going to miss you. It was bad enough when you went off to the Delta quadrant before, but...'

'This time you know for sure that if our search is successful, we won't return.'

Quark nodded. 'Yes. I really hate owing anyone anything, and you haven't used up all of your holodeck time. Your troops were too busy working and doing all of the other things that were necessary for training other groups to use all of the time that you had left.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'You should know that we'll really miss you, too, Quark. We don't have restaurants like this in the Clan. When we have rest days, there are vendors who supply food for everyone who wants to get it from them, and families can bring their own food and barbecue or do other things. Families and friends eat together and talk, relaxing and enjoying the company and the rest. And we eat at home for family dinners.'

'No restaurants at all?' Quark looked surprised. 'But, why doesn't someone start one? Think of the profits that they could make.' He stopped suddenly and smacked his head. 'You don't use money.' He shuddered. 'I still can't believe in a culture that really doesn't use money for anything. It's unnatural.'

Kahmmhi chuckled. 'We're all related somehow in the Clan, Quark. Family groupings vary by size depending on the number of wives and how many kids they have. Some families are small, and others are huge.'

Quark looked interested. 'Define "huge". No offense, but you have different meanings for some words than anything that I've ever encountered. You're speaking the same words, but it's not the same language.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'OK. Take my grandfather's household, for example. There's my grandfather, about thirty five wives, four Charkal slaves, his Shadows, the Shadows of some of the wives, the household bodyguard, and all of the kids. His Shadows are always with him, and some of the other Shadows generally eat with the family as well. But even if you don't count them, a normal daily family meal when everyone is on the Home Fleet means my grandfather, about forty grandmothers and slaves, and somewhere between two hundred and three hundred children who are living at home at the time. Their number varies a lot because of how often the wives have babies, how often they have twins, and how many of the older daughters are still living at home and helping with the younger kids before they go off to Basic or move out and start households of their own.'

Quark shook his head in amazement. 'That is a LOT of people.'

'Yeah.' Kahmmhi couldn't help giggling. 'The really fun thing is watching grandpa try to discipline one of the girls when she does something wrong. He really does try really hard to keep them all straight, but he's already had about forty thousand daughters in his lifetime, and a lot of them tend to look and act alike, so he can't remember the right name sometimes.'

Krohn chuckled. 'He doesn't have to know their name to flip up their skirt and spank their bare ass, does he?'

Kahmmhi blushed. 'No, he doesn't. And it doesn't help that, being his favorite granddaughter, he DID know my name all of the time. I couldn't get away with anything, especially after he assigned four snitches to me when I was about twelve.'

Quark looked over at Kahmmhi. 'You seem to find those spankings very disturbing. Perhaps embarrassing?'

Kahmmhi giggled. 'Yeah, he spanked the granddaughters who were visiting the household when we got playful. And yes, he even managed to leave visible marks on my dark little butt.'

Quark swallowed several times, looked around nervously, and smiled. 'Uh, please, excuse me for a moment. I just remembered something that I have to do.'

Kahmmhi and the others laughed as Quark quickly went across the floor, went behind the bar, and grabbed a very tall, cold drink. He almost choked downing it in one gulp, but he did look much more composed when he returned a minute later.

'Feeling better?'

'Yes, thank you.'

Kahmmhi stood, then leaned down and kissed Quark on the top of his head. 'Take care of yourself, and stay out of trouble. We didn't give you such a good monopoly on the synthesizers and some of the special programs just to have you go to jail trying to make more profits on them.'

Quark looked almost heartbroken. 'I do hope that you get back to your Clan, but if you don't, please promise that you'll at least come and visit once in a while until you do find a way back.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'We will. If we can't find our way back, we do want to check in and see how things are going around here. We are interested in what happens to you, you know.'

Quark waved, and Kahmmhi led her Shadows back to the docking ring and their shuttle. They'd be leaving in the morning. They'd said their goodbyes to everyone else, and now that they had seen Quark, there wasn't anything else for them to do before they left in the morning.

When they reached the docking ring, Odo was there waiting for them. 'I know that we said our goodbyes already, but I just wanted to watch you leave. You know that we'll all be on the promenade looking at the wormhole in the morning so that we see your departure from the system.'

'Yeah, we kind of heard about that through the grapevine.'

'Take care. It's been a long time since you've been in combat against your enemies, you know.'

'If we get back to where we came from, that won't be a problem. Not only do we have a comsat network in place there already, but the enemy avoids that system because of the dangers that it poses to their ships. We got thrown here unexpectedly, and suffered some minor damage to our ships. For the enemy, the stresses that were involved would cause much more damage, and could destroy some of their smaller ships. Their inertial compensators aren't as good as our own are.'

Odo nodded, then stood and watched them board their shuttle. The shuttle left, and all that he could see out of the observation window was the depths of space. There was no visible trace that the Clan had ever been there. He smiled to himself. Now he knew exactly why their enemies called them the Death Wraiths. They came and went without a trace, leaving death and destruction in their wake. He turned and headed back toward the promenade and his office. He had work to do. He felt no more compassion or sympathy for the Consortium than he did for the Founders that the Clan had killed. The Clan didn't attack unless someone attacked them or was a threat to humanity. And he couldn't exactly say that the Founders hadn't erred greatly on both counts where the Clan was concerned.

Virginia looked at Laura and rolled her eyes, then smiled. They were both watching as Kahmmhi nervously waited for their departure from the system.

'Sword of Bajor, this is the Rolling Thunder. We're preparing to take our brood through the wormhole now. Just wanted to warn you before the light show started.'

'Affirmative, Rolling Thunder. You are clear to leave the system. We have already alerted the Alliance picket fleets and DS9. Safe journey.'

'Thank you, Sword of Bajor.' Virginia smiled. 'Good luck, Kyra.'

'Same to you, Ginny. Same to you.'

Laura gave the signal, and the Clan ships entered the wormhole in formation. Seconds later, they came out of the wormhole inside the Delta quadrant.

'Course is two four seven by one eight three. We're in no real hurry, so don't rush the microjumps. Make sure that the compensators on the scout fire cruisers are all clean and green.'

'Orders confirmed by all ships.'

'Execute.'

Kahmmhi stayed long enough to watch the first few jumps, then left the bridge to go over the data that they had accumulated on the cyclic wormhole that was their only potential way out of here. She wanted to make sure that they didn't blow their first chance. It would take another twenty some years before they could try again if this failed. On the other hand, she wanted to make sure that they didn't screw up the first time. They could disrupt the wormhole completely, alter its attachment point, or even go through it only to find themselves coming out inside a star somewhere. OK, she knew that the last one was impossible according to physics, but she couldn't get the very worst case scenario out of her head once she had initially thought of it.

They had taken several days to reach the exact position where they had initially arrived in this galaxy and this quadrant, and had been studying the area around them intently. They could clearly detect the weak boundary between subspace and normal space that constant high warp traffic through this region had created. They could also detect some of the signatures for anomalies like a wormhole. It wasn't quite there yet, but it was clear that the wormhole was slowly forming and building up the energy that would enable it to open and cycle.

'We could only get one chance at this, but I don't want to take the entire fleet through that thing blind. We really do have no idea what could be on the other end of that thing.'

'What about sending one shuttle through first to set up a comsat and relay information back to us here? If we get good news, we haul ass and transit before the wormhole can collapse. Just sending one small scout craft through shouldn't be enough to destabilize it before we can move the rest of the fleet through, right?'

Virginia looked at Laura. 'Well? This is more in your field of expertise.'

'The point is valid, and it is a way to look before we leap. I think that it should work. One recon ship shouldn't be enough to destabilize the connection, and the signal through the wormhole does work. We know that from the comsats that we used around DS9.'

Virginia nodded. 'Very well. We'll do it as you suggested, Tahr Kahhni.'

'When should we go?'

'From the data, it's building up in intensity, so probably a few more days before it's ready for something like the transit of our fleet. We won't have much of a margin for error, though.'

'I'll make the preparations, and let our volunteer pilot know that he's cleared for launch as soon as the time is right.'

'Who's the volunteer?'

Virginia laughed. 'Duh. Who do you think?'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Jason. Predictable as ever. Always the hotshot pilot who has to get there first and see it all for himself before anyone else can.'

'Right the first time. I'll tell Jason that you send your love.'

Kahmmhi snorted and left the room with her Shadows. She didn't need Ginny teasing her while she was still worried that this was going to work at all. She was the one in charge, so she was the one who was responsible if she got them all killed.

Jason looked at the sensors carefully. 'Are you sure that this is the right spot?'

'Dead on target.'

'Right. Release a comsat at the edge of the wormhole, and another as we exit.'

'Roger that. Calculations are all input, and we're reading clean and green. Go on your command, sir.'

Jason moved the controls and his ship slowly moved toward the imaginary spot in space that he was keeping all of his senses focused on. He saw the lightshow begin to build around them as he heard that the first comsat was in place, and then they were moving through the wormhole. The ride was bumpy and disorienting, but they kept their speed and managed to get the other comsat placed as the wormhole was closing behind them.

'Hurry. We're on a deadline. What are our readings?'

'Gravitic anomalies all around us. This place has to be the system that we were exploring.'

'Rolling Thunder, this is Recon One. We have a go. Repeat. We have a go.'

Virginia looked around nervously as they watched the wormhole open and close, then waited anxiously. It seemed to take forever, but finally she heard the signal from Jason.

'You heard the man. Execute our maneuver immediately. All ships in formation, and don't fall out of formation, whatever you do. We're not sure how long this is going to last.'

The ships began moving toward the wormhole. Just as they were almost ready to enter, Virginia entered a command. Kahmmhi smiled, nodded, and waited to see what was going to happen to them. The wormhole opened with a blaze of lights all around them, and then suddenly they were dead in space and alarms were going off all over the bridge.

'Status.'

'Proximity alarms. We're in the middle of that freaking system again. Surrounded by gravitic anomalies of varying magnitudes.'

'Damage reports.'

'Not as bad as the first time. We were moving more slowly, we were prepared for it, and we had all of our systems set up to handle the freaking overloads and surges.'

'Good. How long until we're ready to move again?'

'Two, maybe three hours. A couple of the ships have to replace some worn compensators.'

Virginia looked at Kahmmhi. 'Orders, sir.'

'Get us repaired and moved to a safer position first. Then, when we're all functional, send out a burst signal to try to contact our Clan or any other nearby Clans. We have no idea how far from here they've moved since we disappeared.'

'Roger, sir.'

Virginia and the others did what they could to get the fleet ready for movement again, then moved the entire claw to a point near the hyper point that led from this system to where their Clan had been. They composed the message and sent the signal out, then waited to see what was going to happen. They could be waiting here for months or years, but it was better than striking out blindly and trying to find their Clan.

It had been almost six months, and Kahmmhi was beginning to wonder if their Clan was ever going to receive their message. She was sound asleep when there was an alarm that caused her to jump out of bed and start scrambling for her armor.

'Kahmmhi. We just got a message in.'

'Play it.'

Kahmmhi groaned as a giant figure in all black armor appeared on her screen. The only thing that was going in her favor was that it wasn't a live call, so all she had to do was listen.

'Why, hello, our little lost lamb. Your family had thought that you were all dead, but they were still holding out hope that something had happened that had cut you off from communications. I see from your report that you made it back. Congratulations. Your father and his Clan are nowhere near your current position at present. But don't worry. We're close enough to come and meet you. You can travel with us until we reach the rendezvous that your father designated for us. We can meet you in about three months after you receive this message at the indicated system on the hyper map. After that, we'll have you back to your Clan in another eight or ten months, depending on how many enemy systems we travel through.'

Kahmmhi sighed, then contacted Virginia. 'You listened to the message, Ginny?'

'Oh, yeah.'

'Good. Start us heading toward the rendezvous. We'll be back with our Clan in less than a year.'

'Right. I'll tell the troops the good news. Count on this rest day being wild and uncontrolled.'

'No problem.'

'What's bothering you, Kahm?'

'I really miss grandpa, and after seeing him, I really miss daddy.'

Virginia smiled. 'Kahm, take a break today and get some rest. The worst is over, honey. Even your grandfather takes vacations now and then.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Yeah, I suppose so. I'll see what the Shadows want to do. They always seem to know just what I need to relax me and make me feel better.'

Kahmmhi ended the call, then sat down and had a cup of hot khorb cocoa. There was a little time before she had to let the Shadows know the good news. And Brynhe would be really happy that she was taking a break. Brynhe had been nagging her for months to take some time off and relax before she crashed and burned.

She was still drinking her cocoa when the Shadows came to check on her.

'You're going to freeze sitting around here half naked like that, Kahm.'

Kahm smiled. 'Sorry. I was enjoying my cocoa and didn't even realize that I hadn't finished dressing. Now that you mention it, I am kind of cold.'

'Go back to bed. Ginny let us know what the message was, and that you're taking the day off. Sleep in, rest, and we'll do something later.'

Kahmmhi nodded and went back to bed. Sleep in. That was a novel concept. If she could sleep three more hours, she'd sleep until seven thirty. Just the thought of it made her feel decadent and lazy. If grandpa had been taking a day off, he'd have already screwed half the Fluffs that morning by then. Kahmmhi laid down on the bed, pulled up the covers, and immediately fell asleep. Grandpa was coming, so she'd kept her people safe. That was all that mattered right now. They could worry about getting back into the war against the Consortium later.


End file.
